Nokia has unveiled its new mobile app store which it hopes will take on Apple’s App Store. It’s called Ovi Store, and will launch in May, replacing Nokia’s existing Nokia Download, MOSH and WidSets services.In some respects it’s like the App Store on iPhone: users browse and buy apps on their handset, and developers get the same 70% revenue share as Apple offers.However, the scale is one differentiator – Nokia says Ovi Store will work on more than 50 million handsets at launch (it’ll be a downloadable client), and plans to be preloading it on 300 million handsets a year by 2012 – not just high-end smartphones, but mid-range devices too.Also intriguing is Nokia’s promise that Ovi Store is “smarter” than the iPhone App Store. It includes recommendation tech to serve up content and apps based on each user’s habits, past purchases and even their current location. Apple may need to find a way to tweak its Genius tech to work with the App Store to catch up.Shazam has already signed up as a content provider, as have MySpace, Facebook and Electronic Arts. Companies – including music services – are being invited to join them by registering at the publish.ovi.com website
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