Impressions About Nokia Messaging
This week at Nokia World 2008, Nokia announced its new Nokia Messaging service, which will bring in consumer email and major IM protocols such as AIM, MSN, Gtalk, etc, into a single application service on your phone. I had a chance to sit down with Tom Furlong earlier today, Senior VP of Consumer Messaging, who is in charge of the new launch, to settle some qualms I had from the press release.
First, though the press release states that it will only be available in limited markets initially, which sucks for the U.S. consumers. I originally expected that this was basically a rebranded version of the Oz Communication that Nokia bought earlier this month, and thus the limited availability in the U.S., since all four U.S. carriers currently use Oz’s app to power their SMS-based instant messaging clients. It turns out I was half right.
Tom cleared that up, specifying that the S60 client will be released regionally in the areas in the press release, but that there’s not much stopping me from downloading it in the U.S. and using it on my unbranded S60-powered smartphone on AT&T’s network, assuming I have a data plan with AT&T, that is. Brilliant.
Unfortunately, after checking out the demo on the floor, I learned that the ‘Nokia Messaging’ for S60 is basically just the Email Beta that we all know and love, renamed to Nokia Messaging - no new features, at least today. There *is* an update coming soon that will boost the number of mailboxes you can add to 10, but other than that, it’s likely going to be the same thing we’re already rocking.
Also, I got a preview of the S40 client, to get an idea of the messaging experience we can expect, and I was heartbroken to see that it’s just the same OZ Communications that we already see on branded handsets, only this time with a Nokia splash screen instead. Boo. No support for Gtalk or Jabber, and several other annoying limitations.
Basically, Nokia Messaging is nothing new, and not even much to look forward to, at least not for the next year. Nokia Chat likely will not be integrated for a while, so we’re better off sticking with SlickIM.
If you aren't too busy, send me an email response. I'm still a mobilist only, and can't see any thread or comment subscription option. I'd love to be notified via email when comments are responded to.
Mozilla/5.0 (SymbianOS/9.2; U; Series60/3.1 NokiaN95_8GB/30.0.018; Profile/MIDP-2.0 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 ) AppleWebKit/413 (KHTML, like Gecko) Safari/413
Mozilla/5.0 (SymbianOS/9.2; U; Series60/3.1 NokiaN95_8GB/30.0.018; Profile/MIDP-2.0 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 ) AppleWebKit/413 (KHTML, like Gecko) Safari/413
1. It will let you add all your email accounts in one place, the Nokia Messaging website. Once these are associated to your @ovi.com username, you won't need to enter all those email accounts and passwords on your phone. That's a lot of work on a T9 keypad!
2. Nokia Messaging will support accounts from multiple providers, including AOL, Yahoo, and MSN. Nokia Email currently only supports multiple gmail accounts.
3. Same thing for IM! Currently setting up an IM client on your phone requires a lot of manual account info entries, which can be annoying on a T9 keypad. Enter them in the Nokia Messaging website once, then just login from your phone. This simplifies the setup greatly.
4. It's coming to S40 + S60. Not everyone on the planet has an N95, much less a PC. This will provide email and IM to people who may not have a computer. In developing countries, this will be a big deal!
5. It will be preinstalled on most Nokias from here on out. Once you set it up on one device, it will be very easy to transition to another device. Nokia may be your favorite email provider for the next 10 years, unless something better comes along.
6. Email is changing. IM and Microblogging and social updating sites are changing how we communicate. When Tom Furlong says "a message is a message" that got me thinking. What is the difference between an email, an IM and a "tweet"? Will they all be threaded together? We'll need to wait and see. (Nokia Messaging has not mentioned support for microblogging. I just threw that in there)
Sorry, this came out longer than I was planning.. I'm still wrapping my head around Nokia's plans to become an internet company. They're thinking big on small devices.
The main gist that I got was that Nokia has renamed Email to Messaging, and will be launching that on S40 and S60. I was unable to get any answers as to whether it will be a single app (and how soon), or anything else other than the two main points in my first sentence. I walked away basically with the idea that we'd be waiting at least 9 months, if not 12, before we see anything of real interest/value, basically anything new, around it.
I hope it will be, they'll finally have something to compete against everyone else when it comes to email! And I can finally use gmail reliably (s60 email sucks)