Finnish mobile maker Nokia has announced that its Nokia Chat messaging application is now available to download on all Lumia devices, bringing the service to a number of new countries for the first time.
While the service itself had been available for a little while, some countries – Vietnam, Brazil, Italy, Turkey and numerous others – were left out in the cold without access to the multi-platform chat client.
“Connect with Nokia Chat friends who use Lumia, Asha, S40, and Symbian devices, and those using Yahoo! Messenger on other mobile devices and platforms. Our cross-platform support lets you reach millions of people across a wide range of mobile devices and computers,” the Nokia Beta Labs team said in a blog post today.
Like many other messaging apps, the version of Nokia Chat for Lumia phones allows for person-to-person messaging across its own platform and Yahoo Messenger, push notifications and live updates – whether the app is running or not.
It’ll also let users do things like share a specific place or location (if the other person is using a Lumia they’ll see a preview of the location with contact details, directions, reviews etc. which is pretty neat), and Tap + Send via NFC, although only on devices running Windows Phone 8.
Windows Phone 8 users also get a couple of other features, such as lock screen notifications and the option to speak a message that will then be translated into text.
While it’s good to see Nokia working away on delivering multiplatform experiences, and continuing to focus on its services like this and HERE maps, adoption on Lumia devices could well be lackluster with a spec-list that doesn’t seem to offer much beyond other similar apps on Windows Phone and other platforms.
On the plus side, at least it isn’t a completely siloed application (only working with other Nokia Chat users) and offers the option to integrate and chat with Yahoo Messenger contacts.
Featured Image Credit – Getty Images
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