Nokia Chat is the latest escapee from the Nokia Beta Labs skunkworks. It is an Instant Messenger, obviously, but what can they possibly have come up with to distinguish it from the thousand+ other chat apps available for S60 phones? Answer - they have liberally doused it in GPS special sauce.
At first blush the app works like any other IM-type program - type your comments using the keypad and watch your conversation scroll up the screen of your handset - but, unlike your typical IM client, Nokia Chat can share your current real-world location via Nokia Maps.
You can quickly see the location of your Nokia-using pals and use the app to arrange a meet-up.
A clever feature allows you to set ‘landmarks’ (e.g. your house, your favourite pub, work, etc). When you happen to go near a landmark, Nokia Chat will broadcast this info to your friends so they can keep track of where you are.
It all sounds rather jolly but, as is so often the case with handset-specific apps, it does depend on all the people you want to talk to owning Nokia phones. Windows Mobile or Motorola RAZR owners are used to being social outcasts, but iPhone users will find this kind of exclusion a slap in the face.
It’s really annoying when companies make decisions like this. It is unlikely to get people to persuade their refusnik mates to join a handset monoculture - the only real outcome will be that practically nobody bothers to use what would otherwise be a really useful little app.
This Nokia Chat application is based on XMPP. This is a correct move in the correct direction.
With XMPP, there is a greater potential for future interoperability, as there are already XMPP based implementations out there.