The horror that is Nokia Download!

[Rafe]

Even before Apple's iPhone App Store and Google's Android Marketplace Nokia's Download! service was mediocre. Now it looks decidedly sub-standard. In this feature article Tzer2 takes a detailed look at what's wrong with Download, asks whether a third party could step in and gives some pointers about the right way to do things.

Read on in the full article.

[Rafe]

We well aware that it is complicated providing a better experience across multiple devices (and more particularly across multiple operators). However that doesn't excuse many or the problems that do exist.

One of the interesting things is that Download! eveolved out of Catalog. The original intention of Catalog was to provide a framework for others to provide app stores (catalogs). Each big content provider could have their own Catlog within Download! That distinction is much less obvious now. The categories are just confusing.

Personally I think the Catalog approach had it merits, but the framework was a bit dodgy and only the big companies could get it. Why not open up Download completely so that anyone can add their own catalog or folder. Companies could pay to be there by default, but it could also be possible to add a folder/provider (e.g. AAS could provide a collection of our favourite games or freeware). Have a standard XML files that sit on a server and gets updated - you get the idea. Maybe even do it by adding an extension to RSS?

[Enfors]

Hear, hear!

Excellent points, all of them. I'm sure this is one of the reasons why the state of S60 software is so appalling. Another reason, I think, is that S60 is very difficult to program in C++ for.

[kontraband]

its true. Download is appalling. I'd be weary of the merits tho of shipping it to a third party to manage. It does need an overhaul to make it a good portal to use for purchasing, accessing new content etc etc. It could be so much more.

[Tzer2]

Excellent points, all of them. I'm sure this is one of the reasons why the state of S60 software is so appalling. Another reason, I think, is that S60 is very difficult to program in C++ for.

The good S60 apps already exist, just take a look at AAS's review section for all the ones that score over 80%.

The problem lies entirely in the fact that there's no mechanism for getting these good apps into the hands of potential S60-owning customers. No mechanism means no sales, which means no money for more apps.

It doesn't matter how easy a platform is to program for, if you can't sell software you don't have a healthy ecosystem.

S60 owners probably don't know they own an S60 device because it's not mentioned anywhere on the packaging or interface, so they're extremely unlikely to buy S60 games from Handango etc.

The only way round this problem is an on-phone app shop, but as the article explains, Download! is not up to the job.

[Tzer2]

Why not open up Download completely so that anyone can add their own catalog or folder. Companies could pay to be there by default, but it could also be possible to add a folder/provider (e.g. AAS could provide a collection of our favourite games or freeware). Have a standard XML files that sit on a server and gets updated - you get the idea. Maybe even do it by adding an extension to RSS?

I did actually think something similar, perhaps on the same basis as the Podcasting application. To some extent you can already do this with websites, just tell people to go to mywebsite.com/myapps and they can install SIS files direct from the browser. If you advertise the URL and make it simple and memorable, it's effectively the same thing as having your own download system.

However, on reflection I personally wouldn't want to see a dedicated app shop taking all-comers with no quality control. Apart from the malware risks there's the almost as bad risk of really terrible apps.

It's like those open source music sites: there are one or two competent tracks but it's impossible to find them because they're buried under the utter rubbish produced by everyone else. They rapidly become useless because there's nothing to filter out the really bad stuff, and you soon give up hope.

As it says in the Lucky Lotto article, in the 1980s a lot of "bedroom coder" teenagers managed to write successful commercial software with no budget at all, but part of the reason it was successful was because it passed through the quality control processes of its publisher. Publishers don't just benefit creators by publishing content, they benefit customers by filtering content too (i.e. refusing to publish total dreck).

[Enfors]

Originally Posted by Tzer2

The good S60 apps already exist, just take a look at AAS's review section for all the ones that score over 80%.

I disagree. Current S60 software isn't significantly better than, for example, Palm PDA software was 10 years ago. Just look at the PIM software. Back in 1998, Palm owners complained that Palm's Todo, Calendar, Memo (notes), etc only supported 15 categories. Today, 10 years later, Nokia's S60 software still doesn't support categories at all. And that's just one example where 10 year old Palm software was better than current S60 software. There are many others.

So why is it that S60 software is so bad?

1) It is obvious to anyone who buys a PDA such as a Palm device that you can install 3rd party applications on it - after all, it is a pocket computer. This is not so for S60 devices. This means that a bigger percentage of PDA owners go looking for 3rd party software. A bigger market means that more people will make programs. This is difficult to change.

2) Palm devices were relatively easy to program for - from what I understand, a lot easier than S60 devices are (with C++). For this reason, I can't believe Nokia aren't pushing Python more than they do, since Python is a lot easier to program in than S60 C++.

3) All Palm owners knew that the place to get software was www.palmgear.com. There is no equivalent web site for S60 that is as well known as palmgear.com was (no, handango.com is not as well known among S60 owners as palmgear.com was among Palm owners). And that is where this rant fits into the current discussion - it is too difficult for new S60 users to find 3rd party software (or to even realize that it exists). It's spread all over the web. In the case of Palm, you could find all software on palmgear.com. That is why it would be great if Nokia's Download! service contained basically all S60 software.

[lithgow]

I agree that this is a serious issue: see here for my take.

However, Tzer2 is way off track in suggesting some form of filtering from the shop owner based on "quality" of the software. It's much better to have a good feedback/rating system to handle the problem of rubbish apps. Asking the shop owner to filter stuff based on anything other than Symbian Signed style rules is just suicide -- I thought Apple's recent experiences would have made that abundantly clear by now.

Also, I don't think Nokia are really the right people to do this. Too much of a conflict of interest.

However, Nokia do need to promote it and ship it on the firmware.

Also, not really sure that an app is completely necessary -- all the operator portals are web-based now and work fine. Having said that, though, S60 browser is pretty dire at handling this stuff, so perhaps Opera should be on the phone to run useful web-app stuff. (Just joking: a widget would work fine for this sort of thing, and the S60 browser already supports this.)

Can someone please confirm if Ovi will eventually replace Download! for all kinds of purchases such as maps, games, music, applications, etc. on the S60 smartphones?

[Tzer2]

Also, I don't think Nokia are really the right people to do this. Too much of a conflict of interest.

How? They make the hardware but they don't make any apps (except for the built-in stuff and the occasional N-Gage game).

It's to their advantage to have lots of good apps available for sale on their phones, and to the publishers advantage to have a place to sell them. I can't see how anyone would suffer from such a situation.

However, Nokia do need to promote it and ship it on the firmware.

Nokia aren't going to put something in the firmware over which they have no control. That's not a realistic proposition.

I disagree. Current S60 software isn't significantly better than, for example, Palm PDA software was 10 years ago.

I think S60 is FAR better than Palm was 10 years ago, at least in the gaming area that I specialise in. No mobile devices had games like this 10 years ago:

http://www.allaboutsymbian.com/revie...ion_Review.php

I don't use PIM stuff much so I bow to your greater knowledge in that area, but there are a LOT of S60 apps out there which people would want to buy if they knew about them. A central app store that everyone knows about is vital to let people know those apps exist and let them buy them easily.

However, Tzer2 is way off track in suggesting some form of filtering from the shop owner based on "quality" of the software. It's much better to have a good feedback/rating system to handle the problem of rubbish apps.

If a good feedback system was possible then I might agree with you, but I don't think it is possible, at least not in a mobile app store.

Feedback systems on app download retailers are either useless because people do things like review the demo and post off topic (as on N-Gage) or no one offers any feedback (as on Handango, Clickgamer and other download retailers where very few titles have ANY feedback).

Also, the restricted nature of text entry on mobile devices discourages phone users from writing detailed reviews even if they want to.

Worst of all, feedback is wide open to abuse with the more unscrupulous authors of apps planting good reviews for themselves and bad reviews for their rivals. Numerical ratings are also open to abuse of the same kind.

Just to give an example, here's Handango's feedback for Lucky Lotto (which I can tell you right now is the worst app ever written):

Five Stars - Actually Works

A reviewer from Folkestone Kent, 2008-03-02 11:29:44

"I bought this software as a bit of fun never really appreciating its true worth. It is absolutely astounding that I have done the lottery for years with very little success but since purchasing this software I have had numerous wins very regularly. I have just received another notification today of yet another win. Just waiting for the big one now."


Five Stars - The Best Thing for Playing the Lottery!

A reviewer from Austin, TX, 2006-11-16 06:56:28

"I play the lottery often and Lucky Lotto really comes in handy. I won 82 bucks the other day using it and I just had to tell someone. It helps take all the quess work away. It's cool that my friends can also use it too by entering their birthday and getting results just for them. If you play the lottery you really need this. The win I got the other day already more than paid for itself. I'm just waiting to hit the big jackpot next "

Now no one is going to believe those reviews, but they show that the system is being abused.

Asking the shop owner to filter stuff based on anything other than Symbian Signed style rules is just suicide -- I thought Apple's recent experiences would have made that abundantly clear by now.

NO rules other than Symbian Signed? You wouldn't filter apps which don't work properly? How long do you think any shop would last if it knowingly sold products that didn't work?

I'm not suggesting that any filter would be particularly strict, and I'm certainly not suggesting an Apple-style system where useful apps are excluded for commercial reasons.

All I mean is that apps which have no possible appeal to anyone should be excluded. All I'm suggesting is that apps like this:

http://www.allaboutsymbian.com/featu...lete_Pants.php

should not be included in any web shop, because there's no possible audience for them.

This filtering is vital if you want to build confidence in a shop. People expect retailers to have some kind of minimum quality control. At the moment most app shops have no real quality control and it's very difficult to distinguish the good stuff from the bad. If you buy a game at random from the S60 Games section on Handango, chances are that it will actually be some really poor Java or Flash Lite title with no redeeming qualities, which will put people off buying S60 games ever again.

Can someone please confirm if Ovi will eventually replace Download! for all kinds of purchases such as maps, games, music, applications, etc. on the S60 smartphones?

Ovi is just an umbrella brand for Nokia's online services, it's not a service or technology in itself. Ovi consists of many different services using many different technologies (Maps, N-Gage, Share, Files, Sync etc).

It may be that any future version of Download! will carry the Ovi branding, but that's just a question of the name.

[svdwal]

One of the most important aspects of the AppStore is that it allows micropayments. To give Download! the same impact it needs to be able to handle micropayments too at very low transaction costs.

Further, people are forgetting about consumer protection laws. In the EU, if a product is defective, the shop that sold you the product is liable, not the manufacturer of the product. The shop will have to reimburse you, not the manufacturer.

This means that a shop operator, if he wants to stay in business, has no option but to do some kind of quality control on the products he sells. Manufacturers might not like that, but you cannot force a shop owner to stock products that give him too much trouble.

[Enfors]

Originally Posted by Tzer2

I think S60 is FAR better than Palm was 10 years ago, at least in the gaming area that I specialise in. No mobile devices had games like this 10 years ago:

http://www.allaboutsymbian.com/revie...ion_Review.php

Granted. Today's S60 games are pretty good compared to the old Palm games, but I'd say that's mostly because of superiour hardware.

Handango.com lists 2355 applications as being compatible with my N93. That's nothing considering how many S60 devices are sold. There were easily 3 times as many applications available for Palm on palmgear.com 10 years ago. There is definitely a problem here, and it needs to be fixed ASAP. How long will it take before the iPhone (with its much smaller market share) has more software titles available than S60 does?

[Tzer2]

Enfors, I do totally agree S60 apps could be better and more numerous, but I think that's largely a product of S60 owners not even knowing they own a smartphone.

S60 devices aren't sold as smartphones, they're just sold as phones, and most people seem to think they can only run Java (which is reinforced by all the Java titles in Download!). There's no "S60" branding on the devices or their interface or in any of the advertising, so how could anyone be expected to know they owned such a device?

When S60 launched there were SO many companies who started out with high hopes and then abandoned it due to lack of sales. They tried, they did good stuff, but no one noticed.

The audience exists (50 million S60 devices sold a year), the developers exist (look at all the apps AAS has reviewed), but no one is putting them together.

At the end of the day it's sales that drive any business, and software development is no exception. If S60 app sales went up, there would be more money in the ecosystem, and even more and better S60 apps would be developed to try and get this extra money.

One of the most important aspects of the AppStore is that it allows micropayments. To give Download! the same impact it needs to be able to handle micropayments too at very low transaction costs.

The N-Gage app also allows micropayments, the games cost 7 to 10 euros to buy in full, but you can rent them for 1 or 2 euros per day so they can clearly handle very small amounts of money. These can be charged straight to the phone bill so there's no need to feed any credit card info (though you can use a card if you prefer). There's also talk of having paper vouchers which could be bought with cash, similar to those sold for Skype, Habbo etc.

Nokia (or a third party) could use similar payment options in a more general app shop.

Further, people are forgetting about consumer protection laws. In the EU, if a product is defective, the shop that sold you the product is liable, not the manufacturer of the product. The shop will have to reimburse you, not the manufacturer.

This means that a shop operator, if he wants to stay in business, has no option but to do some kind of quality control on the products he sells. Manufacturers might not like that, but you cannot force a shop owner to stock products that give him too much trouble.

That's a good point, and even without consumer laws people will naturally avoid a shop that seems to stock very poor products.

On the other hand, consumer laws only require apps to work as advertised, so apps like Lucky Lotto may get away with being totally awful because they promise so little.

[bartmanekul]

Originally Posted by Tzer2

Enfors, I do totally agree S60 apps could be better and more numerous, but I think that's largely a product of S60 owners not even knowing they own a smartphone.

S60 devices aren't sold as smartphones, they're just sold as phones, and most people seem to think they can only run Java (which is reinforced by all the Java titles in Download!). There's no "S60" branding on the devices or their interface or in any of the advertising, so how could anyone be expected to know they owned such a device?

And theres the main problem, that and no central point for applications (I dont count download!, its simply too dire).

The N95 rightly got some good advertising. But I never saw anything about 3rd party applications.

Nokia always puts the onus on the handsets themselves, never seemingly trying to make the general masses aware that you can install other things on it.

A lot of people dissapointed with Nokia Maps want to return the handset, as they are not aware you can get other GPS programs for it.

Nokia should pump out some heavy advertising showing a few choice applications you can install.

However, it would be a good idea to make somewhere central to direct people to first...


To grab the general masses, you need to make it easy. Really easy.

In fact, the mechanics are almost there. PC suite detects what phone you have connected with.

Surely its only a small step from there to show a nice, easy navigatable UI of all the apps that apply to your phone. And they could also do this with S40 phones, which I understand have a much bigger userbase.

IMO, the very simple act of adding a leaflet/slip of paper in every handset box saying something like 'Go to www.nokia Apps.com for games, applications and more.' would increase awareness tenfold.

Rather than just having 'supports Java xx applications and S60 V3 apps' buried in the manual.

[Enfors]

Originally Posted by Tzer2

Enfors, I do totally agree S60 apps could be better and more numerous, but I think that's largely a product of S60 owners not even knowing they own a smartphone.

S60 devices aren't sold as smartphones, they're just sold as phones, and most people seem to think they can only run Java (which is reinforced by all the Java titles in Download!). There's no "S60" branding on the devices or their interface or in any of the advertising, so how could anyone be expected to know they owned such a device?

I think that's a very good point. Nokia needs to change this, but I don't think they won't. Why? Well...

I used to listen to the Voice of S60 podcast. The host usually interviewed prominent Nokia employees. He always used to ask them what applications they had installed on their phones. Most of them said none. They were content with the software that came preinstalled on their phones. If even prominent Nokia employees don't run 3rd party applications on their phones, there's little hope that they'll realize that they need to do something to educate their users that their phones support 3rd party applications.

I think this is because Nokia comes from a "phone" background, as opposed to a "PDA" background. They don't realize the value of the PDA / pocket computer aspect of their own smartphones.