July 29, 2010
By Richard McCormack

Ovi App wizard has been launched in the Ovi Store and is already being used locally by many application developers because it is simple and easy to use and oh yes its free as well! There is no registration fee required. In a nutshell, the new tool allows anyone to create an app using an RSS feed.

According to Ronald Bach, Product manager for New24 mobile, “It’s a great little product and brings a useful and innovative mobile content production tool to the local Ovi Store.”

So useful in fact that News 24 has used the tool to develop 6 different apps in the Ovi store including mobile News24, Channel24, Sport24, Wheels24 and Fin24.

“Local content development has certainly been boosted with the OVI App Wizard and we are seeing an impressive uptake rate of our apps through monitoring the OVI App Wizard dashboard. Since launching the apps we’ve had over 18,000 downloads across WRT and java devices.

Ovi AppWizard offers content publishers such as 24.com a simple solution to get penetration on Nokia devices quickly and without any technical expertise or cost.”

Bach says that a big part of the tools attraction is its simplicity of use. In addition, the fact that the product is available in both Runtime and Java means it can be used across a much wider range of Nokia devices. He also said the huge size of the local mobile market, especially amongst the youth, could now see an impressive boost in local content development.

Getting up and running is absurdly simple compared to traditional methods and the six-step process only takes a few minutes.

Firstly, we’d recommend preparing some assets before you start the App Wizard process. You’ll need a couple of images – an application logo, to sit at the top of the application (240×60px) and an application icon (for use on the Ovi Store and on the device – 256×256px).

You should also prepare some description text, but beware the 500 character limit. You should also think about your colour scheme. You can adjust the logo background colour, the general background colour, the channel text colour and the link colour.

Once you’ve got those elements in place, the registration process is pretty straightforward and is completed in six easy stages:

1. Register and agree to the terms and conditions
2. Add up to four web feeds with your content
3. Add a logo and icon and personalise your colours and language
4. Switch on advertising, if you want to
5. Add description text (app description and publisher profile text)
6. Submit your app to Ovi Store

Remember apps submitted through Ovi App Wizard should be processed within 24 hours and won’t be subject to the Ovi Store registration fee, which is an added bonus. So far, apps have been created from more than 90 countries and downloaded in more than 180 countries across 90 different Nokia devices.

If you want to get your content into the Ovi Store, there’s probably no easier way. Even if you hadn’t considered creating a mobile app for your website, the Ovi App Wizard makes it so easy, and free, you’d be crazy not to.  Make sure you own the content you’re submitting though as there is an approval process to go through.

Once your app has been approved and set live, you can log in to the publisher dashboard to check out your stats, showing how many people have downloaded the app, and how many page views the app has had over the last seven and last 30 days.

Head on over to http://appwizard.ovi.com/ to get up and running and start content developing South Africa!