Tips & tricks: Nokia Messaging reference guide

Last week I posted on the release of Nokia Messaging for Social Networks Beta 2 (now that is a mouthful) and mentioned I was going to create a post to try to clarify the Nokia Messaging brand and make it easier for readers to understand what it all means. Let’s take a look at the history, current branding and options, and what I am personally using on my devices and hopefully this post turns into a helpful resource for you all. Not all of the clients work across all S60 devices so I wanted to make that clear to you all as well.

History

Prior to August of 2008 I was very disappointed in the default Nokia Messaging/email client loaded on S60 devices. It supported POP and IMAP, but I never seemed to have it working consistently well and the interface was quite poor. In August of 2008 Nokia launched a beta of Nokia Email and I jumped on the chance to try it out. As I wrote about on my ZDNet site I was very happy with the look and feel of the beta client and it worked reasonably well.

We then saw Nokia Email graduate to a part of Nokia Messaging in December of 2008 and it has been known as Nokia Messaging since then. Davis Fields and the team at Nokia has taken the client/service that was Nokia Email and has continuously improved it over the past year and a half to the rather solid product it is today with three components now under the Nokia Messaging brand. You will still find the older Nokia Messaging client on older Nokia devices, but that is quite a different client than Nokia Messaging as we know it today.

Current Nokia Messaging clients

If you want to discover the available options yourself and make sure you have the latest clients, then a good Nokia resource can be found on the Nokia Messaging website. I pulled all of my information from this site and also communicated with the Nokia Messaging team to create this reference guide. There are three Nokia Messaging clients available for Nokia devices and they are:

1. Nokia Messaging for Email



2. Nokia Messaging for Instant Messaging


3. Nokia Messaging for Social Networks

There were different paths taken for each of these clients, but as we now see them all getting rolled into the Nokia Messaging brand the story is becoming clearer and I hope that users will be better able to understand and use the different services on their Nokia devices.

Nokia Messaging for Email

While you can visit that Nokia Messaging website linked earlier a better site just for Nokia Messaging for Email can be found here which is where you can actually sign up for an account. Nokia Messaging for Email is found on many of the latest devices, but is also easily confused with the Nokia Messaging client that is found on many other Nokia S60 devices that is the old, lame client I never have liked. If you are not absolutely certain your Nokia phone has the client, then I recommend you visit email.nokia.com and have the setup SMS sent to your device to make sure that is what you have on your device.

Here are the current phones that support Nokia Messaging:

• Nokia 5320 XpressMusic


• Nokia 5530 XpressMusic


• Nokia 5630 XpressMusic


• Nokia 5730 XpressMusic


• Nokia 5800 XpressMusic


• Nokia 6120 Classic



• Nokia 6210 Navigator


• Nokia 6220 Classic


• Nokia 6710 Navigator


• Nokia 6720 Classic


• Nokia 6730 Classic


• Nokia 6760 Slide



• Nokia E51


• Nokia E52


• Nokia E55


• Nokia E61


• Nokia E61i


• Nokia E63



• Nokia E65


• Nokia E66


• Nokia E71


• Nokia E72


• Nokia E75


• Nokia E90



• Nokia N73


• Nokia N78


• Nokia N79


• Nokia N82


• Nokia N85


• Nokia N86 8MP



• Nokia N900


• Nokia N95


• Nokia N95 8GB


• Nokia N96


• Nokia N97


• Nokia N97 mini



• Nokia X6

Here are the main features of Nokia Messaging for Email:

• Automatic delivery of email using the IMAP idle protocol


• Support for Yahoo! Mail, Google Mail, Windows Live Hotmail, Ovi Mail, and POP/IMAP email accounts


• Support for Google Apps, Yahoo! Small Business, and other vanity domain email accounts


• Support for up to 10 email accounts



• Support for HTML email


• Available on 10+ Nokia S60 devices and localized in 20+ languages


• Support for subfolders in IMAP email accounts


• Easy email setup using only an email address and password for almost all ISPs


• Efficient data usage


• Intuitive client interface navigation built around top mobile email functions

Back when I was beta testing this service it was stated there would eventually be charges for the service and from what I understand that is the case in some countries. In the US, there is currently no charge to use this service/client. I recommend you check out the FAQ section that has answers to a ton of questions before using this service.

Nokia Messaging for IM

In September 2008 Nokia acquired OZ Communications as part of their services strategy. OZ Communications made most of the IM clients you may have seen on feature phones and other smartphones. With this purchased Nokia then had the people and technology to improve their Instant Messaging services and the Nokia Messaging for IM client we see today has that technology rolled in.

Nokia Messaging for IM rolled out in beta form in June of 2009 and has the following key features:

• Chat with your friends on the Windows Live Messenger, Yahoo!® Messenger, Google Talk and Ovi communities


• Quickly navigate through multiple conversations across different communities


• Background notifications of new IMs for true multitasking on your phone


• Familiar and integrated community experience: Yahoo and Google specific emoticons, graphics, and sounds


• Rapidly set status and availability, and login invisibly – choose who you want to talk to


• See your Ovi friends’ avatars and set your own



• Save conversations to remember your chat sessions

This beta is available for Nokia E75, E71 and E63, and it works with Yahoo!® Messenger, Google Talk and Ovi accounts.

Nokia Messaging for Social Networks

Nokia rolled out the first Social Networks beta in September 2009 that let you view, post, and comment on Facebook messages, share your location, and update your status on Facebook. As I previously mentioned the Beta 2 of this client just rolled out last week and added Twitter support along with much more Facebook integration, including multi photo and video uploads, Event integration into Calendar, and more.

Here is what functionality you can find in Nokia Messaging for Social Networks:

• Contextual homescreen widget; jump directly to your Facebook and Twitter posts and tweets to comment.



• Live Facebook and Twitter updates pushed to your phone homescreen


• Update your status on Twitter


• View / reply to your Tweets


• Communication choices; multiple ways to interact with your friends and social network circles straight from the client (e.g. post a comment, call, SMS, or email)


• Share your current location and your points of interest in a post or in a message leveraging device GPS location and Ovi Maps (e.g. view friends’ location, add your location)


• Multi pictures uploads



• Video uploads


• Search


• Full profile support


• Save Facebook invites to phone calendar


• Events: View upcoming events, birthdays

This beta is available for Nokia N97, Nokia N97 mini, Nokia 5800 XpressMusic, and Nokia X6 devices and it works with Twitter and Facebook accounts.

What about Ovi Mail?

You may also be wondering about Ovi Mail and how it is related to Nokia Messaging. Ovi Mail is like Gmail, Yahoo! Mail, and Hotmail in that it is a free email client that you can sign up for and use on your Nokia mobile phone and via a web browser. It is not directly related to the Nokia Messaging clients and is a free option that is used by many around the world. You get 1GB of storage for email. I have an Ovi Mail account, but rarely use it myself and prefer to use Gmail with Nokia Messaging for Email.

So what clients work on what devices?

As I mentioned in the opening all three of these Nokia Messaging client do not work on all S60 devices. This is particularly clear unless you search around on each of the client pages so here is a quick and dirty list of what works on what devices:

1. Nokia Messaging for Email: Works on just about all S60 devices and the N900 Maemo 5 device (see full list above)


2. Nokia Messaging for IM: Works on Eseries devices only, including the E75, E71, and E63.



3. Nokia Messaging for Social Networks: Works only on S60 5th Edition (touchscreen devices), including the N97, N97 mini, X6, and Nokia 5800 XpressMusic

As time goes on the clients will be updated with support for other platforms, but this is where we are at now.

What I use on my devices

I rely on the Nokia Messaging for Email client on my Nokia devices and find it to be a valuable service that I will pay for it if ever comes to that. I also have been using the latest beta of Nokia Messaging for Social Networks, but find that Gravity for Twitter and the native Facebook client work just fine for my needs. I understand that having a Nokia Messaging branded client may be beneficial to new users and the Twitter and Facebook clients get 90% of the job done too.

I hope you found this reference guide useful and please feel free to ask me about the services. I will update this post as needed to clarify issues and respond to questions you may have.