Sunday 14 June 2009

Is the Nokia OVI Store Broken?

When the Nokia OVI Store opened I found some great software called "Scalado PhotoTwister" this manipulates camera photos on the Nokia 5800 and produces hilarious distorted photos - like a software hall of mirrors. For a £1 I thought this was a no-brainer and was delighted with the results. Scalado works with my phone provider to do operator billing and so I didn't even have to use my credit card to make the purchase. Great. Well it was until I needed to do a hard reset on the phone.


Great software but theres a catch!

After resetting I logged into OVi store went to the "My Stuff" section to redownload the software . The problem is, there is no Redownload option . In fact the only way I can redownload the software is by rebuying it. Ok its a £1 I could afford to buy it again but I think there is an important principle at stake here. What if the software had been £20 or £30, would I really want to pay that AGAIN if I needed to redownload?

I contacted Scalado, this was there response

We will contact Nokia to discuss how this should be handled, it seems to me that Nokia should have stored a record of your purchase along with the IMEI number of your phone, thus enabling you to download the purchased item as many times as you want to that phone.

We will get back to you when we have a response from Nokia.
I have contacted Nokia via there OVI feedback form. No reply. I have posted two items of feedback on the PhotoTwister software telling people about the problem. Have also used the complain form in the software section twice, no response from Nokia.

Several days later I bought Shazam software for £4, this isn't even showing up on "My Stuff" list at all.

Matthew Miller from Nokia Experts has had similar problems, as the Tweet below explains

Major FAIL with Ovi Store! Cannot redownload after a reset? What the heck? Should NOT have to individually contact customer support
Its not clear whether there are widespread problems or just one affecting a small number of people. Are you have problems? Let me know.

Nokia really need to sort out these problems, the reputation of the Nokia store relies not only how well it works but how quickly they resolve any problems that occur.