If you’ve purchased a Nokia handset in the last couple of years you might remember being prompted to join the MyNokia service when you first switch on the phone. The likelyhood is that you didn’t even notice it as you hammered away at the ‘next’ button to fly through the tutorials and other on-screen crap to begin actually using the phone.
The service supplies users with tips, tricks, support and information about their Nokia handset in the form of one or two SMS messages a month.
Here’s the problem, when you switch phones Nokia still send you the SMS messages, with no indication of how to opt-out! I’ve tried replying STOP, OPT OUT etc, none worked as the sender number cannot be replied to.
The last Nokia I had was 12 months ago, I’ve been getting these messages since then. The last two messages from Nokia have been exactly the same too, asking me to download ‘Free Sat Nav’ (picture above).
A quick search on Google shows many others asking the same question “how do I opt-out of this Nokia spam?”. Poor Dave Hall had a torrid time with Nokia customer services trying to stop the things coming through. They even lied to him and tried to say that his operator was sending the things out:
“I called Nokia back. This time I was kept on hold again for around 20 minutes. As soon as the call was answered I demanded to speak to a supervisor. After further time on hold I got to speak to a supervisor. First he tried to tell me it was coming from Optus not Nokia and that I needed to contact them. Next I was told to use the My Nokia menu option, which I explained I didn’t have. Finally he suggested that he could login to the My Nokia website and unsubscribe me – finally I was getting somewhere! Then I was asked for my password, I explained I didn’t have one, “that’s OK sir, you can go to the website and sign up for one”. It was clear after almost another hour lost this was going no where, so I cut my loses.”
I was having lunch with a mate yesterday and watched them get out their N97 to send a text message. Noticing the crappy transitions on the screen, I suddenly remembered the N97 promotion video from last year which basically makes the phone look god-like.
The real life story is somewhat different, I was actually going to put together a video myself then I found someone had beaten me to it. It speaks for itself – watch this:
Found this video on Intomobile and it perfectly recreates the Ovi Store experience I had in the first few weeks of it’s launch.
I’ve wrote about how bad the Nokia Ovi Store is compared to the Apple App Store but now with the power of video I can share that experience with you.
Check out the consumer vs Ovi Store:
Nokia recently revealed the absolute ass-whooping the Ovi Store is receiving in comparison to the iPhone App Store.
The announcement at Nokia World confirmed that since May 26th, users have downloaded 10 million pieces of content from the Ovi Store. Compare this to iPhone App Store which surpassed 100 million downloads in the first two months and 1.5 billion after a year. The Ovi Store supports 100 Nokia devices and the iPhone App Store supports, wait for it…2.
Now remember ‘pieces of content’ doesn’t just mean apps but also lame things like ringtones, wallpapers, etc count too. I wonder how much of that 10 million is actual apps?
The Ovi Store had huge technical problems on the first day, Nokia underestimated the demand and consequently suffered outages meaning that for many people, it was over before it started.
The technical issues weren’t the only problems with the Ovi Store user experience. The Ovi Store requires the CRAZY backwards step of having to find, download and install the Ovi Store client before you can use it.
If I wasn’t a mobile phone enthusiast I would have given up on the Ovi Store the very first day it was launched. Apart from the Nokia server problems it took around 3 tries and 40 minutes to set up on my phone. The end result was a clunky and slow store with some poor quality applications that neither provided a good service or enhanced the handset. Read More
