Farewell Nokia Chat - long live Contacts on Ovi!
Fri, 2009-01-23 13:16
Written by Kristian Luoma, Product Manager, Contacts on Ovi team
Hey all,
If you're a regular Beta Labs blog reader, you've probably noticed that our monthly updates of Nokia Chat (see here, here, and here) have stopped for a few months. This has been simply because we've had to focus on getting a bit more of your requests made. While weighing your most valuable input to our product team, we've run a number of studies with teams of people here and there. This has been a great learning process for us.
Today, it's time to say goodbye to Nokia Chat. On this same day, we're asking you to give a warm welcome to Contacts on Ovi mobile client. You'll find the experience very close to what Nokia Chat offered you - it's a natural evolution of what Nokia Chat was.
What's new, apart from the brand? I'll have to first say that the clients are in a better shape, we've resolved lots of bugs that have been bothering you and us too. Secondly, we're supporting lots of more devices now. The new platform we have a client for is S60 3rd Edition Feature Pack 2. It's about time, right? We wanted it to look better, and have more features in it. With the new client available for the latest models you'll be able to broadcast the music you listen as a part of your personal message (for those of you that are in to XMPP, I'll just give out that it's using the PEP extension, which you'll find supported in some PC clients too).
Oh, and if you have friends who have a Series 40 based phone, there's a J2ME client available too.
We need still your help to get this right, and we trust you to give us open feedback about what you'd like to see.
With the Contacts on Ovi client you'll be able to chat with your friends in Google Talk too.
You'll find the clients from this page. (note: please remove the Nokia Chat and the support package from your device before installing the new client!)
Enjoy, and thanks in advance for your thoughts!
BR, Kristian
Ps. Yes, the Nokia Chat friends are with you when you sign on to Contacts on Ovi mobile client. Yes, it works with your existing Nokia Acocunt. Yes, you can chat with Nokia Chat users still after you've installed the Contacts on Ovi client :-)
Comments
@Andy: I think the transport is an option to think about, to me, it would seem to resolve most of the user needs.
@Ben V.: I'm not sure what to say to this, to be honest. We need to look in to this carefully. I don't mean disrespect with my responses towards this topic -- I just don't have an answer to this that is good enough. I guess :-)
@andy: I don't know what the Contacts Group app could be... not related to this. Did you try reinstalling the service support package too?
@Martain: Teppo has a point above. There may be interoperability issues between Conversations and our app.
@CarlosManuel: No idea what so ever what could cause that. Do you use PC client while you see the problem?
Hi, I install CoO in 2 E71 (my wife and I), in my cell look fine, I can see the contacts and their avatar pics, but my wife is allways in "disconected" status (already check is avaliable in her CoO), but we can chat anyway.
In my wife CoO she can see me online but can't see her contacts avatar pictures but the generic pic.
Any idea?
@Martain: Sounds really weird because some other users (CarlosManuel and Ben) don't have this kind of problem. Unfortunatelly I don't have E71 so I can only guess what you could try to do next. Do you have the newest firmware in your E71? Have you tried to install CoO to phone's memory not to memory card?
Btw, have you noticed that CoO was updated today (28th)? I don't know what have been updated, but you should download files again, or then just use your phones browser for installing. I did the latter one with my N96 and everything works.
I have one question:
Is it possible to use this messaging program if your friend doesn't know about Contacts on Ovi?
I have about 100 contacts and not one is communicating with something other than sms (and no, I don't believe this will change).
I'm waiting since 2007 for a messaging application which looks as good as the iphone one and includes the one and only form of messaging which everyone can and always will use!! SMS!
Nokia..... .... stop... wasting... ... time.. ... One messaging application for everything!! Why is it so hard???!
gah! no matter how much user-agent futzing I do, I can't get the page to give me the java client download. damn it
It would be nice if I could use my existing Jabber address (username@gmail.com in this case) for since I would not have to recreate all the contacts etc. from scratch.
My guess is that the xmpp implementation in this is incomplete and generally broken. Instead of fixing the client code to talk to actual xmpp systems, they filter the transactions on the server -- which does speak xmpp. There's no other reason why the application would be locked to just the ovi server, only incomplete/broken client code.
@ Tzer2, Because the Nokia standard sms application sucks and is ugly. I'm waiting for an iphone style sms since about 2 years now and it pisses me off to see nokia working on multiple messaging tools which all follow the wrong design philosophy and just DONT WORK on my N82 device. Nokia Conversations? Broken! Contacts on Ovi (what a smart name for a messaging app)? Crashes every time I start it!
Why not make one cool, easy and user friendly messaging application with includes sms, all IMS AND email? Is it sooo hard? I think I will have to get an Iphone...
@Kristian
Yup, already uninstall Nokia Chat & Support package but no luck
Found that there is Contact Group apps -> should i remove this also?
Schattenwand, if all your contacts only use SMS, why do you want to use IM on your phone at all?
I have a ATT 6650 and have installed it but it freezes then crashes
I would really like to see a presence setting for profile so it show's if my phone is on "silent" or in a "meeting"
Echoing the other replies here this app is just of no use to me. Re-adding all my contacts from Google Chat to a new contact that I'm only going to use on my mobile phone is just kind of out of the question. The idea of having an Ovi name and whatever else logged in at the same time sounds interesting, but also sounds inefficient.
If Nokia is trying to replicate the success of chat services like Blackberry Messenger I'd hope that Contacts on Ovi becomes standard with a new phone and my future Ovi login works across all the Nokia sites.
On a complete side note. I downloaded the newest firmware for my e71. It's great, no really it is a huge improvement. Although now I have the "My Nokia" Application. Let me tell you how uncool it is to have an app standard on my phone that opens to a message of "This feature is not supported in your country" and does not allow me to delete it from my phone through conventional means.
chat.ovi.com won't talk to Kopete (KDE instant messaging) - even when Kopete is set to hide system info.
Ah, I just noticed you were down.
http://friendview.nokia.com/ How is this related to location sharing in Contacts on Ovi? Just wondering.
Is that the friends location display on Nokia Maps!!
Man!! If that is actualy it, that would be super cool!
Just last week, i had started a thread in the forum explaining how Nokia Maps, Nokia Chat, Conversations client and Nokia Account all needed to converge. This looks like a step in the right direction.
I would request the Contacts on Ovi team to take a look at this - http://betalabs.nokia.com/forum/topic/301
@Kristian
you mentioned Extending support to other networks is not entirely up to you? whats this mean? who else is it up to? isn't XMPP an open standard? who's Nokia answering to?
@Ray (#13): I tried HOSTSing chat.ovi.com to my XMPP server's IP address. Didn't work. :( It would complain about bad user credentials even though they were right.
Used Nokia Chat happily and with no issues on my N95 for months, installed this new version today and lost all my GTalk contacts and have no way to retrieve them (invites are being sent to 'googlemail.com' instead of the correct 'gmail.com' email addresses).
Another software failure by Nokia. Thanks guys...
Wow, didn't realize that we sitll have comments in the blog too. I was polling the forum for Contacts on ovi. My bad. :-)
@al: Friend view and Contacts on Ovi are separate services, so the location sharing element are not related to each other at the moment.
@Alsiladka: Thanks! Yes, baby steps, baby stpes.. Hopefully we'll get there eventually. Nice post.
@G W: 1) is not currently on the agenda, sorry about that. But for 2), we are federating openly. We already are able to talk to anyone in Jabber network (like Google Talk). Extending support to other networks is not entirely up to us, so we'll have to see how that progresses over time. But again, I can see your reasoning, and have to say that I agree with what you're saying about the vision.
@charliebrown: Eventually, eventually, .. We just got the S60 3.2, which was something I'm happy about. Sorry for the delays on getting that one out. Hopefully the wait for version to 5800 won't be that long.
SO do we have to remove conversation before we install it
I keep getting the error message "Update Error" when attempting to install the support file. What gives? I'm using a N95-3.
@Kristian:
So is your refusal to simply add a "server" entry to the settings (allowing people to use their existing, well-known XMPP-accounts) based on technical considerations? Or is it Nokia's corporate strategy to try and force people into using Ovi? (Which, of course, will fail this way.... there's real IM-applications for S60 out there.)
After installing the Contacts on Ovi and the new network services support package, Psiloc Connect stopped working on my handset (N95-3).
Other than that, the app seems to be working okay so far. I just don't see any substantive difference between it and the last version of Noka Chat on my handset.
@ #4 Jeremy. I have a N95-3 too, I have had to remove the phonebook extension manager to allow me to install this app.
Instalado sin problemas en un nokia N95 8GB,con el firmware V30.0.018
@all: Mi wife problem fixed, she deleted all the contacts and invited again, all is working fine now.
Good update. But still missing some characteristics!!!.
+1 for using my existing Jabber/XMPP account ... I really don't need another one when all of my contacts are on my current account.
Kristian: "@G W: 1) is not currently on the agenda, sorry about that"
Why? What kind of attitude is that? Is that a general Nokia policy??
(I start to regret having both an E71 .. it's more closed than an iPhone)
I have many crash with this version in a Nokia N95, i have to return to previous version
LO INSTALE SIGUIENDO TODOS LOS PASOS (DESINTALANDO EL ANTERIOR) Y ME DA MULTIPLES ERRORES, AL CONECTARSE SE CIERRA LA VENTANA Y NO PUEDO HACER BUSQUEDAS DE OTROS CONTACTOS ME ARROJA EL SIGUIENTE ERROR: network unavailable. TUVE QUE REGRESAR A LA VERSION ANTERIOR NOKIA CHAT....
Hi,
Does anyone know how we can have chat style like shown in 2nd screenshot?
I am not able to figure out how to.
Is it only for FP2???
If thats the case then thats example of Nokia's bias towards FP2.
I am using an E71 so I downloaded the version for S60 3rd FP1.
I get the message "Update error' when installing Contacts on OVI. I used Nokia Chat before, which Ii removed before starting the installation of Contacts on Ovi. I also restarted the phone before installation.
I look forward on a solution to be able to use the new client!
Tried to install but no success, always shows update error. Using E90 v300. Should I format my E90 first?
@Merlin: Sorry about this bug, we'll fix this. Actually Googlemail.com is used in some parts of the world, but obviously it needs to be gmail.com.
@Schattenwand: Thanks for your proposal. I'll have to agree that this would be the right thing to do. Let's see what we can do about it.
@Martain: Did you also remember to remove the support packages? And did you re-install that also?
@Fernando: Did you try it out with a Series 40 device? I'm sorry, but the midlet doesn't really work on Series 60 (e.g. the 5800) -- that's why they are not on the list of supported devices.
@??????: Sorry if I sounded that I'm off with wrong attitude. Having ability to sign with different Jabber accounts would be a bit too big strech for what we do right now, I think. Having a support for say aggregation (e.g. entering your existing account credentials, but still having Nokia account authentication) would be more feasible. Would you see this good enough?
@Andy: Did you remove the support package and Nokia chat if you had them before?
-Kristian
I've just managed to successfully register a transport on my Ovi account. If you log into your Ovi account with a full XMPP client such as PSI, you can register with any transport on another server that allows 'foreign' registrations. I used my own PyMSNt, and now see all my MSN contacts in CoO.
@Kristian. Don't worry, these things happen. That's why it is called 'beta' labs. :)
Actually, although the googlemail/gmail bug stops me from adding some contacts, my original contacts soon reappeared, and so the problem that I had the other evening was, I think/assume, that I switched from Chat to Contacts at the same time that you made some server changes (Ovi.com was down at the time, I saw soon enough).
All is ok enough for now, I await the bug fix, but overall it's a much improved app visually and in some of the functionality.
Nice work, overall. 8/10 for effort, anyway. ;-)
We are waiting for support 5800
A good solution for all of those people wanting to connect to other IM accounts would be to implement transports on the Ovi server. They let your account bridge to others, so you're signed on multiple accounts through one.
Hi,
I faced some serious issues with N96 and the reason might have been CoO.
Short notes what happened: I had installed Conversations and started having some issues with messaging, meaning that sometimes SMSs weren't sent at the first time. Then I installed CoO, and everything worked fine for awhile, but when I tried to send a SMS, it weren't sent. I rebooted N96, and it become really slow. For some reason it tried to start WebServer Fonecta Avain and gave "WebServer already in use" and "Fonecta Avain already in use". I couldn't open Messaging because N96 informed "Messaging already in use". Camera wouldn't start. Shortcuts were empty. I tried to uninstall WebServer and did several reboots but nothing helped. Finally I had to do soft reset... I need to investigate was the reason Conversation, CoO or combination of these? Any experiences?
N96 sw version was 12.043.
Cheers,
Teppo
@Kristian, yes, I did. I removed the Internet support packages and the Nokia Chat software.
Prior to re-install the suppport package and Contacts on Ovi, I restarted the phone.
I run S60 3rd FP1, software version 110.07.127 on the E71.
Perhaps it is also worth mentioning that I have Conversation and Windows Live installed. Both are of course under the pulldown menu within Contacts.
@Martain: I would uninstall Conversations and reboot your E71 before installing CoO. This is just a hunch, which I haven't been able to try out because I had reset my N96. The problem might have been Conversations and CoO.
Hey,
There's some problems with our hosting environment at the moment. That's why you can't log in at the moment. We're working on it and hoping to make it work soon again.
Sorry for the inconvenience.
-Kristian
@Kristian:
Your answer was perfect. I know now.
@Kristian: Hello, sorry but my english is not so good. We have two E71s terminals, the problem is in my Wife E71 cell phone. She only see avatar generic picture for everybody, and is allways disconnected for everybody, but everybody can chat with her anyway. Thanks and regards.
BTW, exist a PC Client? ;-), sorry is a joke...
@Kristian and Teppo
Thank you both for your answers.
I removed Conversations as well as Windows Live! Messenger and reboot the phone afterwards. Installing Internet Services Support Package 1 (version 1.07(5)),the WebServices Support Package and CoO resulted in the error message 'Update error'.again.
Do you have any other suggestions through which I will be able to install CoO?
Works well with Google Talk. Only issue is that it will not let me upload my photo (error message Memory Full) on my N82,
I did a hard reset on my handset and reinstalled everything. Both Contacts on Ovi and Psiloc Connect now work.
@Teppo
Thank you again for your answer.
I tried to install the software updated at Jan 28th on the phone's memory. I got the same result as before, 'Update error' during the installation of CoO.
I do not run the newest firmware for the E71 yet.
I run version 110.07.127. I have a couple of applications installed and since the E71 does not support User Data Preservation, I must take my time for an upgrade in order to have everything correct aferwards i.e.backup data and applications, write down settings and configuration etc.;)
@ Schattenwand: Try conversation. It's still in development, but looks like it exactly what you need. And works beautifully in the same time with Contacts on Ovi
Cheers
OVI is real good service. Thats my opinion.
finally can install CoO but still can not install the other file
still mentioning update error
any idea?
Kinda disappointed there's no S60 v5 version for the 5800 yet.
Still no support for 5800? Come on... :-((
It looks very nice, but two things would be *greatly" appreciated in a future version:
1) Support for non-Nokia Jabber servers. The great thing about XMPP/Jabber is that it's interoperable. There's therefore no real reason why I should need to have more than one XMPP account. Let me use my existing one, please! I have an existing XMPP friend list that I could use, and I don't want to have to tell everyone to add yet another IM account for me.
2) If 1) doesn't happen, then you should install conduits allowing us to talk to other IM networks via Contacts on Ovi. S60 STILL has no built-in multi-platform IM application, which is shocking. And no, the 'IM' application doesn't count. Nobody uses that and few know how to anyway.
If you did this, I'd be able to talk to anyone via Jabber, MSN, AIM, and suchlike via one well-integrated application, which would be very nice.
Connection to other XMPP / Jabber Servers is a must. My jabber ID is the same as my email-address which makes really sense so no chance to switch to some Oviwhatever account.
btw. did anybody try to fool the client to another server with giving wrong information for example by DNS? Or is there something like a hosts file on S60 to make the client connect another server.
best regards
Ray
I love this service! Trying to use it everyday!
For all those having trouble with installation of Contacts on Ovi with e71; more specifically, those encountering the "update error" message. After exhaustive trial and error, the problem seems related to having installed the e61i (s60 v3 initial release) version of Nokia Chat beta. At a point in time, this release was the only available that would work, albeit with some caveats, on the e71. For all of us beta testers that despise having to reset our handsets every other week, here is the only working option I've been able to realize. Uninstall Nokia Chat beta. Uninstall the Nokia Internet Services package, as well as any other related apps: Conversation and Windows Live for s60. Restart the handset after each step for good measure. Reinstall the Nokia Internet Services package and the Phonebook Extension dll that can be found on the beta page for Conversations. Reinstall Conversation and Windows Live if desired. Finally, Install the s60 v3.0 version of Contacts on Ovi from its beta page. This method should work just fine! However, the icon for Nokia Chat remains even as the change to Contacts on Ovi is reflected in other parts of the UI. It's still somewhat obnoxious to be bottled into using the initial distro release version for a previous decision to install an unsupported app, but it is a risk we testers all run. If this discovery leads any with more intimate knowledge of the files involved to find a more complete fix, it would be much appreciated! For now, this is my piece...
I have installed both Contacts on Ovi as well as Windows Live on my N82 and for some reason, when I try and open Contact on Ovi, it refuses to. Before I installed Windows Live, Contacts on Ovi worked fine. After installing Windows Live, I encountered this problem. The Windows Live works fine though. I tried uninstalling and installing them both. Contacts on Ovi first, then Windows Live, as well as the other way around. Still, the Contacts on Ovi doesn't seem to work. What solution is there to my problem?
why my nokia can"t downdload ovi contact,someone can help me?
Pleasseeeee add Yahoo And MSN for the service..
i have no contact from Gtalk..!
can't invite anyone.
why only Google Talk? wish it could be in YM too
hi, i just got an e7 and it MOC built in. does it mean i cant use the ovi chat instead?