Gadget Freak

As part of its new “Ovi” web service, Nokia has unveiled plans to include social networking sites such as Facebook, Flickr and Youtube with the OS for the Series 60 Smartphone.

Ovi (which means “door” in Finnish) is based on the idea of bringing content from communities of which you are already a member to your phone. With its iPhone, tapping into Web 2.0 is something that Apple, up until now, has been most reluctant to at least trial. Even though the iPhone juggernaut has more than capable hardware and software, to date Apple has only allowed .Mac services to be integrated with its latest cash cow. Web integration is not exactly one of Apple’s strong points, so consumers have not exactly been flooding the iPhone’s Internet capabilities.

A new music download store will also come as a part of the Ovi package. With a Windows Media-based player included with Ovi, Smartphone owners will be able to download songs for €1, or for €10 a month, music aficionados will be able to have access to unlimited downloads that will work on PCs.

The catalogue of games from Nokia’s cumbersome N-Gage handset will be dusted off and brought back from the vault, as they will still be playable on most new handsets from the phone manufacturer. Ovi will allow consumers to download and play these delightful timewasters and there are new games for the Smartphone coming from software publishers Capcom and Electronic Arts.

Bite-sized morsels of video from Youtube and uploading and viewing photos on Flickr could be perfect for mobile phones small screens. There’s only so much people will be willing to view on a phone screen, regardless of how advanced the technology is. However, Nokia has constantly led the rest of the pack in regards to mobile phone design and user-friendly devices, and Ovi may prove to be another leap ahead of competitors.