On Monday Nokia announced that it’s killing off the Ovi brand. Beginning in July and August, the Finnish firm will rebrand its Ovi products under the “Nokia services” moniker, and the transition will continue into next year. “By centralizing our services identity under one brand, not two, we will reinforce the powerful master brand of Nokia and unify our brand architecture – while continuing to deliver compelling opportunities and experiences for our partners and consumers alike,” executive vice president and chief marketing officer, Jerri DeVard, said. Nokia confirmed it has “no planned disruption” to the roadmaps of its Ovi products, but that new customers will begin to see the branding change on devices shipping later this year. The firm will also rebrand some applications through future software updates.

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In a recent blog post, Nokia reaffirmed its commitment to the Windows Phone ecosystem by offering us a glimpse at what is to come. The company’s CEO, Stephen Elop, has noted that Nokia has “shifted from a mode of developing” its strategy to one of “putting that strategy into action.” Part of the Finnish phone giants plans involve bringing some of Nokia’s strengths to all members of the Windows Phone family, and one of the most exciting Symbian ports will definitely be Ovi Maps. “Nokia will supply mapping and location-based services for the Windows Phone ecosystem, building on the success it’s experienced with Ovi Maps,” reads the blog post. The company also notes that a “Nokia-branded  application store” will be present on the company’s Windows Phone hardware. The CEO also went on to say that Nokia is hard at work in the hardware department, and quipped that his company would “define some of the future disruptions in our market.”

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IHS, new owner of research firm iSuppli, has issued its full-year data on app stores in 2010. According to the company’s report, Apple’s market share decreased significantly last year while its revenue more than doubled. The app store pioneer pulled in $1.78 billion in global app sales during 2010, up 132% from the $769 million its App Store earned in 2009. Not surprisingly, its market share dropped from 93% in 2009 to 83% during the period. RIM’s BlackBerryApp World grew 360% year-over-year, pulling in $165 million and accounting for nearly 8% of the market. Nokia’s Ovi Store jumped 719% to $105 million in 2010, and Google’s Android Market was up 862% to $102 million. All in all, the top four mobile app stores combined to reel in $2.16 billion in revenue last year, up 160% from the $828 million of revenue they earned in 2009.

[Via All About Symbian]

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Reuters is reporting that mobile giant Nokia will stop offering its free music downloads service — Ovi Music — to new handset purchasers. The service, which initially launched in 2008, has received a luke warm reception due to the restrictive DRM used by Nokia, more competitive music service options, and lack of carrier support. Customers who currently have a free music subscription will be able to use the service until their subscription runs out. Universal, EMI, Warner, and Sony had partnered with Nokia to bring the service to over 27 countries.

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Nokia has just made a new, beta version of its Ovi Maps suite available for download via the Beta Labs channel. The update, version number 3.6, allows users to download street maps directly to their device using Wi-Fi, features a new, unified “My Position” and “Search” feature, improves transit line display, and betters compass calibration on your device. If you’re a Symbian user, and want to try out the new goods, head on over to Nokia’s Labs site and have yourself a download.

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Late yesterday, Nokia announced the availability of a public beta for its new software synchronization suite, Ovi 3.0. The new Ovi has been in private testing for the past several months and Nokia is promising improved “stability, syncing and the experience with downloading maps.”

“We have been working hard to improve the quality of Nokia Ovi Suite,” reads the press release. “We have also introduced a new Home view, and integrated our music experience with the millions of tracks available on Ovi Music even more closely to Nokia Ovi Suite.”

The company is looking for users to download the new bits onto their computers and provide feedback. If you’re a Symbian user, why don’t you just go right ahead and oblige them. The full list of improvements and a short video detailing some of the new goodies is waiting for you after the break.

What’s new in Nokia Ovi Suite 3.0

A new Home view

• Get quick access to your content and to sync
• View recommended apps and games from Ovi Store
• View recommended music from Ovi Music *
• Receive notifications to update your phone software and to back up your phone
• Connect to the internet without a fixed connection or WLAN

Introducing Ovi Music

• Get full control of playback
• Discover and download your favourites from the millions of tracks available on Ovi*
• Drag music to and from your phone
• Have access to your Ovi Music Unlimited account *
• Get all the features you need in Nokia Ovi Suite – no need for a separate player

Other improvements

• Experience the faster and simpler installation
• Delete individual maps from your phone, download maps with greater reliability
• Enjoy improvements to syncing and stability

Nokia is certainly not the first cell phone company that comes to mind when the topic of App Stores is raised. Here in the U.S., it’s probably not even the second, third or fourth company that comes to mind. But as the market for mobile apps continues to explode globally, Nokia is quietly proving it still has plenty of gas left in the tank.

Nokia announced a new milestone for its Ovi Store Thursday morning: 3 million downloads per day. The impressive milestone comes with just 18,000 content titles currently available in the Ovi Store for Nokia’s most popular devices. It also comes just over two months after the 2 million daily download mark was reached. This rapid growth rate is showing no signs of slowing, as interest in Symbian continues to build on both sides of the app equation — users and developers. Nokia needs to appeal to both groups in order to maintain success with the Ovi Store, and so far the company’s efforts are working. In the last year, over 400,000 new developers have joined Nokia’s developer program, and the Finnish company’s Qt development tools have been downloaded more than 1.5 million times.

Nokia is very focused on the success of its developer partners, Michael Bramlage, Director of Media at Nokia, told BGR. Bramlage, whose team is responsible for both the Ovi Store user experience and product management on the developer side, joined Nokia just before the Ovi Store launched. The company’s aim, Bramlage said, is to create a sustainable business for as many developers as possible rather than watch a small number of successful developers rise to the top.

But there have been some stand-out success stories of course, with almost 100 developer catalogs having achieved the 1 million download mark. One developer catalog has amassed over 45 million downloads so far. Some developers have even found more success in the Ovi Store than they have in Apple’s App Store. “Without any promotion or marketing dollars, in a few weeks we’ve hit 200,000 downloads in Ovi Store faster than we did with [Apple's] App Store,” said Anton Gauffin, CEO of BLStream, creator of the game Crazy Hamster. “We’re very positively surprised with what we’ve seen on Ovi, and we’re on track to exceed our App Store performance even though we’ve been there longer.”

Nokia appears confident in the belief that these successes are just the beginning. The company expects to bring up to 50 million new users to the Symbian platform with upcoming devices like the Nokia E7, and all those users will need plenty of titles to sate their app lust. Bramlage and his team are also hard at work as they prepare to launch a new version of the Ovi Store that will be available on upcoming Symbian devices in the near future. The redesigned Ovi Store, which the team hopes to also bring to some older Symbian devices, will feature a revamped UX that aims to improve the overall user experience in several key areas.

Nokia has a long way to go before it catches up to the staggering app ecosystems its competitors Apple and Google have built, but the world’s top cell phone manufacturer certainly seems up to the challenge.

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Nokia’s facing a pretty bleak future when it comes to the world of smartphones, so the launch of the E73 Mode with T-Mobile couldn’t have come at a better time. Designed with business professionals in mind, but has enough features to make the average user happy including a 5 megapixel camera, free turn-by-turn navigation via Ovi Maps, and 10.2Mbps HSDPA which should make the device quite the speed king thanks to T-Mobile’s rapidly expanding 21Mbps HSPA+ network. The Mode is attractively priced at $69.99 on contract, but unless you’ve got some serious ants in your pants, you might want to wait until this Saturday when you’ll be able to get the Mode, along with all T-Mobile handsets, for free as a part of its Father’s Day promotion.

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It looks like Symbian freaks based in Canada who already have the N97 from Bell will be able to get themselves a new plaything this summer, as Rogers is launching the Nokia N97 Mini. The device isn’t actually for sale yet but is rather being shipped out to dealers across the country, but barring any last minute chances it looks like the outright price of the N97 Mini has been set at $499.99 while the 3-year price is $99.99. Anyone planning to get this, or are you going to avoid it just like you would the plague (or N97 for that matter)?

Thanks, anonymous!

And once again we have proof that where there’s a good amount of smoke, there’s likely to be fire. Today Nokia announced it will be bringing the E73 Mode, a Symbian S60 device said to offer a perfect balance between work-life and, uh, life-life, to T-Mobile. Best thought of as a E72 with a facelift, the Mode features not only a 2.4″ QVGA display, full-QWERTY keypad, 5 megapixel camera, Wi-Fi and 10.2Mbps HSDPA, but also free turn-by-turn navigation from Ovi Maps. The Nokia E73 Mode will be available from T-Mobile on June 16th for $69.99 on a 2-year contract.Read

Nokia and Yahoo! have announced the formation of a strategic partnership — on a global scale — that will, “leverage each others’ strengths in e-mail, instant messaging and maps and navigation services, to provide consumers with access to world-class experiences on both PC and mobile devices.” The newly formed alliance will work to meld the strengths of each company:

• Nokia will be the exclusive, global provider of Yahoo!’s maps and navigation services, integrating Ovi Maps across Yahoo! properties, branded as “powered by Ovi.”
• Yahoo! will become the exclusive, global provider of Nokia’s Ovi Mail and Ovi Chat services branded as “Ovi Mail / Ovi Chat powered by Yahoo!”
• Nokia and Yahoo! plan to work on ID federation between their services, beginning by making it easy for people to use their Ovi user IDs across select Yahoo! properties to easily access the online content and services they need.

Co-branded services are expected to show up in the second half of 2010 and globally in 2011. What do you think? Will the move make Yahoo! and Nokia more capable of fighting off other companies who are gaining momentum in their respective spaces *cough* Google *cough*? We’ve got the full release all lined up for you.

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AT&T made a pretty big splash last year when it launched the Nokia E71x, and now it appears that T-Mobile is hoping to do the same on June 16th. That’s the date Engadget has been informed T-Mobile will introduce a new, business-centric and Symbian-based QWERTY smartphone from Nokia known as the E73 Mode. Other than it will have 3G and Wi-Fi, concrete specs have yet to emerge (although we think it pretty safe to assume it will best the E72 based upon nothing but our knowledge of Nokia’s naming conventions). We’ll hit up some of our T-Mobile connects and try and find out what we can, but in the meantime please feel free to speculate at will.

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If you’re a fan of low-cost messaging phones with a social twist, prepare to lose your mind, for Nokia today announced three such devices in the C3, C6 and E5. The most basic of the bunch is the C3, which just so happens to be the first Symbian S40 device to ever feature a full-QWERTY keypad. It offers a 2.4″ QVGA display, 2 megapixel camera, Wi-Fi, Ovi Chat, Ovi Mail and support for microSD cards up to 8GB. It will be be available in golden white, slate grey and hot pink in Q2 for 90€ ($122 USD). Next up is the C6. A full touchscreen with a sliding horizontal QWERTY keypad, the C6 bring to the table a 3.2″ 360×640 display, 5 megapixel autofocus camera with flash, HSDPA, Wi-Fi, GPS and Ovi Maps. Look for it next quarter for 220€ ($299 USD). Finally we have the E5. Expected to be available in Q3 for 180€ ($224 USD), it crams a 2.4″ QVGA display, 5 megapixel camera, HSDPA, GPS, Wi-Fi and support for Microsoft Exchange and IBM Lotus Notes into its tiny candybar frame. As always, we’ve got Nokia’s little promo videos queued up after the break.

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A somewhat tame version of the X6 has been announced by Nokia today and will become available this quarter. The new 16GB X6 has half the memory capacity of the 32GB version, and it’s also missing the Comes With Music feature. If you think you can live with that, the 16GB X6 has an impressive battery life of 11.5 hours talk time and 18 days of standby, 4.5 hours of video playback and 35 hours of music playback. Of course, Nokia doesn’t cut any corners with cameras on its high-end devices, and this one features a 5 megapixel shooter with Carl Zeiss optics and a dual LED flash — pretty much par for the course on Nokia devices these days. The new X6 also has in-phone video editing capabilities and TV out support so you can watch your amateur cinematography on a big screen. No details on pricing, but we’d imagine it to be less than the full-fledged 32GB version.

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