Where's the fail whale when you need it, right? Early yesterday morning, Nokia
flipped the switch on its
Ovi Store, claiming that it's app market would potentially reach some 50 million users around the world. Unfortunately for Nokia, it seems as if all 50 million attempted to check things out at the same time. Web-wide, users were griping that things just weren't working out, and we're not talking about small packets of flustered users. In fact, Nokia was forced to admit that "shortly after launching, it began experiencing extraordinarily high spikes of traffic that resulted in some performance issues," and judging by reactions, we'd say "some" is now a front-runner for understatement of the year. Have things smoothed over for you today? Are you even bothering to check?
Update: Nokia has
apologized for the gaff and has reportedly added server capacity to handle the demand. Question is: is the fix working?
posted May 27th 2009 12:43PM
Having been a Nokia user for many years. I knew I jumped off that bandwagon at the right time.
Nokia App store FAILS like sokia phones...
Lets us c if NOKLA can pick up the ball....
more proof that Apple is just far superior to this Nokia garbage
What were they using that caused the slowdown? Symbian to run the servers.
The Ovi Store is going to have a huge drop off in traffic in a few weeks after users get bored with it. Why does a Nokia user have to go to the Ovi Store? Can't they just download their apps and games like they've been doing for the past 10 years or so from hundreds of other sites?
Apple trolls can't stand the competition. :D
Cue the apple middleaged infantile delinquets.
@sr, you jumped of the nokia bandwagon and then you claim to have still 2 S60 phones. Make up your mind.
@sr
Sure. You missed a consolidated app store, Nokia's best refresh in years and some really good phones.
Go you.
As for Ovi, it's working fine now. I've downloaded about ten apps already! :)
@Mark... you mean all ten!?
@roole
No, I mean ten out of the selection. Of course I'd already downloaded Shozu, vTap and Google Maps from the other Ovi independent sources that let me so wasn't constrained to one provider's selection.
Good that, isn't it? :)
I gotta say this is a pleasant problem to have for Nokia. Better than excess capacity and crickets chirping.
Anyone remember when Mobile Me came out and it died on launch? Fanbois? Anyone? No.... thought not.
the fail whale is in the qik logo on the screen.....
@ Aaron
Looks to me like Nokia cant stand their customers..
Having used Nokia's services like this in the past, I can't say I'm surprised.
In before Apple fanboys.
@ Dafrety
ok ... so now whats your point ... why even bother leaving a comment?
"In before Apple..."
You should have posted this as a reply 2 the first comment..
You fail like Nokla Ovilation store....
This guy is a known Apple-hater.
Trolling Apple posts and going as far as following people around in threads. Just ignore him.
He's known to follow YOU arround threads. What's the matter you finally get kicked off Gizmodo?
And, no despite having 2 Nokia S60 phones around, I won't even bother to check. It's an exercise in futility.
I wouldn't say it was a fail. Au contraire, I'd say Nokia underestimated its success. It was a technical fail.
Want a fail? iPhone sales in Asia.
That depends on whether Nokia planned for a lot of demand, and was still overwhelmed... or just planned poorly.
My bet is on door number 3, which is that they ran into unexpected glitches that have little or nothing to do with actual amounts of traffic.
That said, neither you nor I know that Nokia's seeing heavy demand, so you're just speculating.
STFU NOOB...
the only reason iPhone sales in China are low is because there are about 100 different iClones..
Nokia only has NOKLA... one clone because no one cares about shite nokia
Yes James. That's why the iPhone failed in Asia. Because they have shitty low spec'd phones compared to the fabulous array of high-end phones in the US.
Not because the iPhone was overpriced, underspec'd, and that people over there care about what their phones do, more than how it made them look.
@james
A noob callin' someone else a Noob, Iphonediots.
And maybe sales aren't doing so good is because there's not alot of difference between clones and the crap phone so the price alobne worth gettin' a KIRF of that phone.
You STFU.
I wasn't going to reply to your iPhone in Asia comment since it was obviously such a poor attempt at trolling... But your comment about people there caring "what their phones actually do" made me laugh out loud.
China is one of the most image-conscious countries out there. That's why KIRF *everything* is so popular. Huge numbers of consumers who only care about the brand name on the product because they want to show off to their friends.
Of course, this isn't true about all of Asia, but China IS the most populous country...
Yes, the iPhone failed terribly in Asia. It's going to take a quite a bit of doing to educate those people as to what's going on in the greater part of the world. Moving from the 19th century to the 21st century will be a shocking experience for many of them. They're smart people and most are willing to learn, but economic problems, poor communications infrastructure and their own stubborn government intervention have slowed them down by putting blinders over their eyes. Once shown the way, they'll be ready and eager for the iPhone. A couple of more years should do the trick.
You guys are ALL pathetic. Damn it, I'm eating the troll bait.
Use your android phone or Nokia or whatever, it's great. I'll use my iPhone which I think is great. Whatever features it lacks, I obviously don't need. Maybe your needs are different than a large majority of other people who are happy with it or maybe you have never even used one. I can tell you one thing, I could care less about the logo. It seems that you care about the logo, though, and therefore will bash a product based on that logo.
One more thing... Apple failed like this to some degree when they launched the iPhone 3G and the systems were crawling. They also failed with MobileMe at first. Nokia failed now. All companies fail at some point... Then they fix it and life moves on.
Come on guys, the iPhone is not even offical out in China (except for the SAR Hong Kong, SAR Macau).
One reason is that the apps aren't quite as appealing over there. Bounce, Koi and Supermonkeyball stay great, but your foodie or taxi ordering apps don't work. Even Google Maps got most Hong Kong streets mapped IIRC only a year ago, and then many businesses aren't listed. In the end, you're not getting as much out of your iPhone as you would in, say, New York, so that Touch Diamond 2, E71 or just saving some money and geting a 5800 is a lot more attractive.
Worked just fine for me. I went on "Download!" under Applications and got the app, haven't had a problem yet with it yet, besides the lack of content.
I don't know what people are so mad about. It works on my N85 NAM. I've used it to buy an app yesterday morning using a credit card. I never really used the old services, but I would say this is a much better app with better interface and functionality. The selection is a little small, but I think the main purpose - exposing developers' applications to the world of (50 million?) nokia users - is there. I look forward to more developers jumping on board now that there is a more integrated distribution service.
I guess you would have to judge fail by what they were setup to handle. If they had done a piss poor job of setting things up and had rather weak response but still went down, that is a failure. If they did a job on par with say the app store and but still went down that would be a faux pas. If they had a pretty strong setup, say twice as strong as the iPhone app store and they still went down, then that was a fucking win.
Works fine for me.
That's quite a misleading headline. You make it sound as if the whole system is worthless and no one is using it (OK, technically since it was b0rked, no one was using it). Technical glitches happen. Didn't that happen with AT&T and the iPhone? I'm pretty sure no one deemed that launch a failure.
Are you high? EVERYONE deemed the iPhone activation (and last year's MobileMe) launches utter failures in multiple articles PER DAY on engadget.
Live by the sword, die by the sword. It's only fair that if they get a lot of publicity for new products, they also get lots of publicity for failures. But you must have been living under a rock to make such a clueless comment.
Forgot about MobileMe (I don't use the sucker).
Fine, the technical launch itself was a failure. But either way, the headline was misleading (and has been subsequently changed, I've noticed).
Give it time. Why so harsh?
I wonder.
I haven't seen any problems, just launched it this morning. I fail to see the "failure" in app store thus far.
Works well with me.
I'm still stinging from the MobileMe fiasco. What we have here is just a failure to launch, Nokia failied to anticipate just how popular their phones were. A problem - but a good one. The worst case scenario would have been snappy servers due to lack of interest. Good on you Nokia. Apple's Appstore needs more competition.
Engadget's hate for Nokia is unbelievable...
"Nokia has apologized for the gaff and has reportedly added server capacity to handle the demand. Question is: is the fix working?"
So you did not tested it? right?
...
It works fine today for me.
Works for with my n85
seems like nokia followed apple's path
http://www.engadget.com/2008/07/11/itunes-activation-servers-go-down-iphone-3g-customers-being-sen/
btw, works fine for me
win.
i think this is a pretty big fail for nokia. Technical glitches aside, the content available on day one is just piss-poor. why would nokia decide not to run some of its best apps on day one? great apps like kyte or skype for example. how about Qik? it seems to be available for the 5800, but not for other phones. if you go to qik's website, you can get it for all sorts of nokia phones. where are all the nokia apps? why isn't nokia maps on there. i know it comes pre-installed on n and e series phones, but what if i want to re-install it? i have to go to nokia's website and get it from there. why in the hell are they not using this as the sole distribution channel for all of their apps?
and one more thing that really pissed me off yesterday. i "purchased" twittix for 99 cents yesterday. i launch it only to find out that i just paid for a demo app! WTF?!!! if you want the whole app, you need to go to the twittix goddamn website and pony up another $5 to have the privilege of using their app beyond the demo period. how in the hell could nokia let this slip through on day one of launching their app store when they have so few apps available on their now? this doesn't look good at all.
So is it safe to say apple iPhone has schooled nokia on judmst 2 short years?
So is apple app store now standard by which app stores r meaured,?
It apparently isn't safe for you to operate heavy machinery...
@guru
What?
Btw, that is also what the doc said when you where born.
I thought they were going to lauch the store with over 20000 items...
Let me do the math: Applications (172) + Games (96) = 268.. Okay i'll be nice + all the other stuff nobody needs (289) = 557
And, by the way, how could they possible say: 'We have almost as many items as the App Store has', if you also music as a item? Like the Itunes Store doesn't have any music to buy. I'm confused..
I tried it out yesterday few hours after the first headlines started to pop up indicating a big launch failure and by the time I got there it seemed be running just fine. Why can't anyone at Engadget try it out themselves and find out whether or not it's working?
At least Nokia got a lot of (bad) PR for their Ovi store. I mean they opened it up pretty much without saying a word, too bad they still managed to fuck it up... Same thing happened with N-Gage though not over a one night. I mean a lot of people know what N-Gage is but the associations with it aren't exactly great.
It's the next six to nine months that are crucial. If people aren't really using it by Christmas I'd say it's all over for Ovi AND I still hate that stupid name. Why did they have to come up with it, I will never understand.