Nokia Chat update too

"insanely-useful GPS-aware"?

Am I the only one who really doesnt like the idea of people being able to pinpoint exactly where I am?

Watching the chat promo video it highlighted that your mates and family, etc, can quickly find out where I am so we can hook up easily, but surely the fact I have a phone with voice and text ability kinda solves that problem .. "ring, ring .. where are you?" usually does the trick. Obviously gps aware apps like this can show WHICH of your friends are close by, but at what price?

Of course could just be old fashioned.

You obviously haven't used it. It only tells people where you are at the locations you've previously authorised from your Nokia Maps landmarks.

It's a VERY well thought out system. My only comment would be to make is easier for new users to get to the aforementioned authorisation screen.

Obviously gps aware apps like this can show WHICH of your friends are close by, but at what price?

My understanding is that it only shows your position to people who you want to see your position.

This can be very useful in many situations, for example if you're meeting friends in town you'd want them to know where you are.

If you don't want someone to see your position this won't show it to them.

Obviously some people will worry about the ability of authorities or people at the phone network seeing their position, as this is an issue of personal privacy. But that's already a problem with all mobile phones anyway because the network can see which phone mast you're connected to, which places you within a few hundred metres (or in some cases tens of metres) of a particular spot.

The app is an interesting experiment, but unfortunately helps draining the battery faster - which, coupled with the already low battery life, results in a sad smiley 😞

If my device had a better battery or was more efficient at conserving power, I wouldn't mind leaving the app on all day long...

slitchfield wrote:You obviously haven't used it.

Fair point, you are right I haven't used it so maybe I should give it the benefit of the doubt.

I am just getting a little nervous about some of the trends and direction of some "social" applications and networks at the moment, so am a little guarded. Being one of the only people I know without facebook, myspace, etc, I see the almost total dependency of virtually everyone around me on publishing their every mood and activity to the world. I don't really want everyone knowing what I am up to or where I am all the time (like I have any reason to be so secretive. Truth is the most exciting thing I'm doing is grabbing a coffee from costa haha).

Don't get me wrong, I'm a total geek so I love the way technology is bringing us new ways of communicating, it's just some technology is maybe going in the wrong direction but for the right reasons.

BUT .. that is probably a different topic than chat from Nokia haha

The app is an interesting experiment, but unfortunately helps draining the battery faster - which, coupled with the already low battery life, results in a sad smiley

According to the release notes of the update they've greatly improved the battery life while using this app, and presumably the release version will be even more energy efficient.

Early Beta versions of mobile applications are notorious for using a lot of power because in the early stages they're just worried about getting it to work rather than power optimisation. By the time they're ready for release though, they've usually been altered to be much more careful about energy efficiency.

I am just getting a little nervous about some of the trends and direction of some "social" applications and networks at the moment, so am a little guarded. Being one of the only people I know without facebook, myspace, etc, I see the almost total dependency of virtually everyone around me on publishing their every mood and activity to the world. I don't really want everyone knowing what I am up to or where I am all the time (like I have any reason to be so secretive. Truth is the most exciting thing I'm doing is grabbing a coffee from costa haha)

It's a perfectly fair point, but like you say this isn't necessarily related to this app in particular.

I don't think people realise just how much information they're giving out on the internet, and how permanently this info is out there. Sooner or later people are going to suffer because of it, and it seems likely that tighter government regulation will be needed at some point on how long companies are allowed to keep data (though worryingly many governments themselves seem to want to store internet data in the long term too).

The best rule of thumb is to always give out as little information as possible, and never give out any personal details unless you're sure it's worth it.

Tzer2 wrote:According to the release notes of the update they've greatly improved the battery life while using this app, and presumably the release version will be even more energy efficient.
[snip]

Perhaps so, but it's hardly possible to use any app for extended periods of time, really... Anything that forces the screen to light up or an internal device, that is otherwise idle, to be powered up is going to lower the already low battery life.

...and this app will auto-start and run in the background the entire day - perhaps together with other apps (such as Nokia's new mail app). Hmmm. Am I negative or what 😊

...and this app will auto-start and run in the background the entire day - perhaps together with other apps (such as Nokia's new mail app). Hmmm. Am I negative or what 😊

I don't think they intend people to use this the entire day. From what I understand it's more like Maps, that you use it when you need to.

With e-mail, the release version will presumably have some way of alerting you that doesn't require the full app to be running in the background. Nokia's internet tablets handle e-mail in this way, they flash up an alert when mail arrives and ask if you want to launch the mail app so you can read the mail, very much like phones telling you about text messages.