Ovi Store re-downloads thankfully widened

Published by Steve Litchfield at 7:47 UTC, November 1st 2009

Posting on their official Twitter account, Nokia's Ovi Store team have widened the qualifications for re-downloading purchased content, restoring the situation to how it was immediately after the system was trialled a month or so ago. They posted: "OviStore Redownload update: Re-DL poss on replacment device if same model or compatible one". So, as long as you're signed into the store and have a device that's compatible with the one you bought the original item for, re-download should be possible. Which all sounds eminently sensible - at last.

Backing this up, the posted a link to Forum Nokia's device spec tables.

Having, essentially, the re-download system locked to just your Ovi username brings the Ovi Store into equivalence with the Apple and Android app stores - which I've long felt is something that needed to be in place. Now - how is it working out for you in practice? I imagine there are crossover pains for people buying items before this latest store software update?

News Discussion

Quote:

Originally Posted by Unregistered You think that allowing a re-downloading free for all from the Ovi store is sensible? I suppose this just shows how ignorant you really are to the realities of mobile software sales. In this scenario one buyer can let any of his buddies with a "compatible" device download the app at will. I see this only bringing more pain to the already utter failure that is Ovi. Combine this with the complete lack of DRM, and we're going to see far fewer developers releasing their apps on Ovi, or if they do release their apps it will be nothing more than a feature crippled version that discreetly points back to their own sales portal. So while you guys celebrate your penny pinching victory - I will wonder just how much longer Symbian will be a financially viable development platform. If you see a business model in selling a piece of software once, and having it installed on an infinite number of devices, you're as mad as you look!

The exact mechanics aren't on display, from the summary I got the impression this is for a REPLACEMENT device. i.e., to re-download, you must register the new device. I'd imagine Nokia will get suss if someone all of a sudden gets 10 phones, and would rightly block that user. This is just my take on it anyway, given that Nokia, much like you or I, would not want folk mass distributing apps and stealing sales. I'd be very surprised if you can just log into any compatible phone and redownload, without transferring licenses to that phone, and I would also expect some sort of time restriction, i.e., can only transfer to replacement phone every 3 months (similar to a windows install), without actually calling Nokia to explain the situation.

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