UPDATE: problem fixed as of may 27th. i now see applications for my phone.

***

I don't know if this is location specific, so for those of you who live elsewhere, lt me share with you a nice piece of "how not to create a user experience":

As soon as I log in, the store is empty. Completely empty. Not one single item in any category.

Now on a day when some sources say it was a world wide launch, other say it's only Australia and Singapore, ... an educated Nokia customer needs to be careful. Maybe my phone isn't yet supported? Maybe my country isn't on the list and I'm gonna see the shining, wonderful Ovi experience in a few days when the Finns discover the Alps? Who knows?

But you see, this is exaclty the point:

What kind of bonehead lets you select the store from within Ovi only to present you with absolutely empty shelves and no information whatsoever why this is? Can't they tell me somewhere in fine print "We're not open yet in your country" or "Again, as you're probably used to by now, your phone isn't yet supported. Expect it to work with this service in 10 years." - Anything would do.

Instead, they let you walk through an empty store. If I were a normal consumer who doesn't know the infinite incompetence of this company, I would probably think "Woa, what a boring place, they don't have anything here." I'd leave and never return again.

Why do they do this? It's not so much of an effort to keep people informed and maybe even invite them to come back later, is it?

Hang on there benny.

I think the firing should go higher than you seem to support.

The guys and gals in the Ovi trenches worked their butts off with a severe shortfall (in my estimation) of the resources required.

Nokia executive management was stupidly stingy in the one area that they could not afford to be.

I would have gladly accepted a spot on the Ovi team, say in the area of configuration/information management. Oh well.

If the tarnish on "N-Gage" wasn't enough for Nokia to abandon the name, I can't see them giving up on "Ovi" so easily.

I said those responsible should be fired. I don't expect to find those people in the teams actually working on Ovi.

Hehe... good point. And I always thought my company was a madhouse.

Understood, and I'm not just trying to split hairs-- I think it should be rebuilt from the top down, not ground up.

Hmmm... Just for curiosity I got in there store.ovi.com, and it seem to work for fine for me? (Only that couple those apps seem to show up twice... but no other issues that I noticed.) Maybe they did fix/increase the servers and/or increase bandwidth?)

I do not have account there... so I was just browsing as guest.

UPDATE: I just created a new account for me. No issues whatsoever. Also they sent a link to my phone to activate the account... activation worked fine. Also logged into the OVI account with my N73, and the contents is shown properly formatted to my phone small screen...

What's all that fuss about? Was I just lucky?

UPDATE2: Synchronized my phone (contacts, calendar) with my PC, no problems. Also did browse maps for fun... 3D maps works as well as current traffic conditions shows up. (That's on my PC with Firefox browser...) The experience is very similar to google maps. The only issue I noticed that trying to get into music store gives timeout.

as i said: it could be a matter of region and/or phone model. (i'm used to ovi services telling me that "your model isn't currently supported")

as they don't tell me what the reason is, I can't tell you. I only see "0 items" on the left, no matter which category i choose.

I haven't read the W. Post article yet, but I looked at the store and was mainly disappointed to see that there was nothing for my Nokia Internet Tablet. We're like the bastard step-children Nokia customers.

I can see hundreds of applications for N95 8G. I would expect more, and some big names are missing, for instance QuickOffice, SPB TV, etc.
I logged in with my existing share.ovi.com account and it worked. I read a report in Washington Post the existing users cannot log in with existing ovi/nokia account - that's not true in my experience.

What I don't know and like to know if the applications presented for a device, let's say N95 8G, are they country dependent? So for other country, they see more applications for N95 that I see?