Hi everyone!

Welcome to the latest edition of your pseudo-monthly JMP update!

In case it’s been a while since you checked out JMP, here’s a refresher: JMP lets you send and receive text and picture messages (and calls) through a real phone number right from your computer, tablet, phone, or anything else that has a Jabber client.  Among other things, JMP has these features: Your phone number on every device; Multiple phone numbers, one app; Free as in Freedom; Share one number with multiple people.

eSIM Adapter

This month we’re pleased to announce the existence of the JMP eSIM Adapter. This is a device that acts exactly like a SIM card and will work in any device that accepts a SIM card (phone, tablet, hotspot, Rocket Stick), but the credentials it offers come from eSIMs provided by the user. With the adapter, you can use eSIMs from any provider in any device, regardless of whether the device or OS support eSIM. It also means you can move all your eSIMs between devices easily and conveniently. It’s the best of both worlds: the convenience of downloading eSIMs along with the flexibility of moving them between devices and using them on any device.

So how are eSIMs downloaded and written to the device in order to use them? The easiest and most convenient way will be the official Android app, which will of course be freedomware and available in F-droid soon. The app is developed by PeterCxy of OpenEUICC fame. If you have an OS that bundles OpenEUICC, it will also work for writing eSIMs to the adapter. The app is not required to use the adapter, and swapping the adapter into another device will work fine. What if you want to switch eSIMs without putting the card back into an Android device? No problem; as long as your other device supports the standard SIM Toolkit menus, you will be able to switch eSIMs on the fly.

What if you don’t have an Android device at all? No problem, there are a few other options for writing eSIMs to the adapter. You can get a PC/SC reader device (about $20 on Amazon for example) and then use a tool such as lpac to download and write eSIMs to the adapter from your PC. Some other cell modems may also be supported by lpac directly. Finally, there is work in progress on an optional tool that will be able to use a server (optionally self-hosted) to facilitate downloading eSIMs with just the SIM Toolkit menus.

There is a very limited supply of these devices available for testing now, so if you’re interested, or just have questions, swing by the chatroom (below) and let us know. We expect full retail roll-out to happen in Q2.

Cheogram Android

Cheogram Android saw a major new release this month, 2.13.4-1 includes a visual refresh, many fixes, and some features including:

• Allow locally muting channel participants
• Allow setting subject on messages and threads
• Display list of recent threads in channel details
• Support full channel configuration form for owners
• Register with channel when joining, deregister when leaving (where supported)
• Expert setting to choose voice message codec

Is My Contact List Uploaded?

Cheogram Android has always included optional features for integrating with your local Android contacts (if you give permission). If you add a Jabber ID to an Android contact, their name and image are displayed in the app. Additionally, if you use a PSTN gateway (such as cheogram.com, which JMP acts as a plugin for) all your contacts with phone numbers are displayed in the app, making it easy to message or call them via the gateway. This is all done locally and no information is uploaded anywhere as part of this feature.

Unfortunately, Google does not believe us. From speaking with developers of similar apps, it seems Google no longer believe anyone who has access to the device contacts is not uploading them somewhere. So, starting with this release, Cheogram Android from the Play Store says when asking for contact permission that contacts are uploaded. Not because they are, but because Google requires that we say so. The app’s privacy policy also says contacts are uploaded; again, only because Google requires that it say this without regard for whether it is true.

Can any of your contacts be exposed to your server? Of course. If you choose to send a message or make a call, part of the message or call’s metadata will transit your server, so the server could become aware of that one contact. Similarly, if you view the contact’s details, the server may be asked whether it knows anything about this contact. And finally, if you tap the “Add Contact” button in the app to save this contact to your server-side list, that one contact is saved server-side. Unfortunately, spelling out all these different cases did not appease Google, who insisted we must say that we “upload the contact list to the server” in exactly those words. So, those words now appear.

Thanks for Reading

The team is growing! This month we welcome SavagePeanut to the team to help out with development.

To learn what’s happening with JMP between newsletters, here are some ways you can find out:

• The chatroom remains the heart of the community. You can also join from your web browser or from Matrix.
• The blog, where you may be reading this. Can also be followed in a client like Movim.
• The Lemmy Community
• The Subreddit
• On ATprotocol
• On Twitter

Thanks for reading and have a wonderful rest of your week!

Hi everyone!

Welcome to the latest edition of your pseudo-monthly JMP update!

In case it’s been a while since you checked out JMP, here’s a refresher: JMP lets you send and receive text and picture messages (and calls) through a real phone number right from your computer, tablet, phone, or anything else that has a Jabber client. Among other things, JMP has these features: Your phone number on every device; Multiple phone numbers, one app; Free as in Freedom; Share one number with multiple people.

Today JMP is 7 years old! We launched on this day in 2017 and a lot has changed since then. In addition to what we talked about in past years (see https://blog.jmp.chat/b/february-newsletter-2022 and https://blog.jmp.chat/b/february-newsletter-2023 for example), in the last year we’ve brought JMP out of beta, launched a data plan, and have continued to grow our huge community of people (channel participants, JMP customers, and many more) excited about communication freedom. So, in light of some vibes from yesterday’s “celebration” in some countries, we’d like to take this opportunity to say: Thank you to everyone involved in JMP, however that may be! You are part of something big and getting bigger! Communication freedom knows no bounds, technically, socially, or geographically. And you make that happen!

Along with this huge community growing, we’ve been growing JMP’s staff as well — we’re now up to 5 employees working hard to build and maintain the foundations of communication freedom every day. We look forward to continuing this growth, in a strong and sustainable way, for years to come.

Lastly, while dates have not been announced yet, we’re excited to say we’ll be back at FOSSY in Portland, Oregon, this year! FOSSY is expected to happen in July and, if last year is any indication, it will be a blast. We’d love to see some of you there!

Thanks again to everyone for helping us get to where we are today. We’re super grateful for all your support!

As always, we’re very open to feedback and would love to hear from you if you have any comments, questions, or otherwise. Feel free to reply (if you got this by email), comment, or find us on any of the following:

• The chatroom remains the heart of the community. You can also join from your web browser or from Matrix.
• The blog, where you may be reading this. Can also be followed in a client like Movim.
• The Lemmy Community
• The Subreddit
• On ATprotocol
• On Twitter

Thanks for reading and have a wonderful rest of your week!

Hi everyone!

Welcome to the latest edition of your pseudo-monthly JMP update!

In case it’s been a while since you checked out JMP, here’s a refresher: JMP lets you send and receive text and picture messages (and calls) through a real phone number right from your computer, tablet, phone, or anything else that has a Jabber client. Among other things, JMP has these features: Your phone number on every device; Multiple phone numbers, one app; Free as in Freedom; Share one number with multiple people.

The biggest announcement this month is that the JMP Data Plan is, for customers anyway, no longer behind a waiting list! For those not yet familiar with the plan, this is USA+Canada only (for now) and also data only (no phone number, since if you want one of those you can use JMP!) It works like other pre-paid data plans you might be used to, except greatly simplified. Data never expires (there is a nominal annual fee to keep a plan active) and by default auto-refills whenever it gets low (up to a user-configurable limit every month). Data is purchased in blocks of 5GB and works on most major carriers in the USA and Canada.

Any JMP customer can go now to their account settings and use a command to buy one or more data plans, delivered using either a Physical SIM in postal mail, or eSIM download. People who want a data plan but don’t want a JMP number will need to wait a little longer, and can still add themselves to the waiting list for now, as we work out the billing system changes needed to support this seamlessly.

Speaking of eSIMs, we have heard from a lot of you since we first launched the data plan in the testing phase about gaps in the current eSIM ecosystem. Many people are still using devices that do not support eSIM, or operating systems that do not support downloading an eSIM with freedomware. Others just have trouble getting an eSIM moved from an old device to a new device, or prefer the flexibility to move their plans between multiple devices on a regular basis. All of this is why we have, since the beginning, offered the option to get our data plan shipped on a physical SIM card. However, we are currently investigating some options to do more, and bring the flexibility of a physical SIM (and software freedom and broad device compatibility) to eSIMs from any provider. It’s early days yet, but if this interests you, come by the chatroom and talk to us about what you’d love to see in the future.

To learn what’s happening with JMP between newsletters, here are some ways you can find out:

• The chatroom remains the heart of the community. You can also join from your web browser or from Matrix.
• The blog, where you may be reading this. Can also be followed in a client like Movim.
• The Lemmy Community
• The Subreddit
• On ATprotocol
• On Twitter

Thanks for reading and have a wonderful rest of your week!

Hi everyone!

Welcome to the latest edition of your pseudo-monthly JMP update!

In case it’s been a while since you checked out JMP, here’s a refresher: JMP lets you send and receive text and picture messages (and calls) through a real phone number right from your computer, tablet, phone, or anything else that has a Jabber client. Among other things, JMP has these features: Your phone number on every device; Multiple phone numbers, one app; Free as in Freedom; Share one number with multiple people.

Automatic refill for users of the data plan was rolled out to everyone this fall. This has been going well and we fully expect to enable new SIM and eSIM orders for all JMP customers (with no waitlist) in January, after the holidays.

Speaking of holidays, MBOA staff, including JMP support staff, will be taking an end of year break just like we always do. Expect support response times to be longer than usual from December 18 until January 2.

This fall also saw the silent launch of new inventory features for JMP. Historically, JMP has never held inventory of phone numbers, buying them directly from our carrier partners when a customer places an order. Unfortunately, this leaves us at the mercy of which regions our partners choose to keep in stock, and this year saw several occasions where there was no stock at all for all of Canada. So we now have a limited amount of local inventory to improve coverage of important regions, and may eventually be adding a function for “premium numbers” for very rare area codes or similar which cost more to stock.

We have also been working in partnership with Snikket on a cross-platform SDK which we hope will make it easier for developers to build applications that integrate with the Jabber network without needing to be protocol or standards experts. Watch the chatroom and the Snikket blog for more information and demos.

There have also been several releases of the Cheogram Android app (latest is 2.13.0-1) with new features including:

• Improved call connection stability
• Verify DNSSEC and DANE and show status in UI
• Show command UI on channels when there are commands to show
• Show thread selector when starting a mention
• Circle around thread selector
• Several Android 14 specific fixes, including for dialler integration
• Opening WebXDC from home screen even from a very old message

To learn what’s happening with JMP between newsletters, here are some ways you can find out:

• The chatroom remains the heart of the community. You can also join from your web browser or from Matrix.
• The blog, where you may be reading this. It can also be followed in a client like Movim.
• The Lemmy Community
• The Subreddit
• On ATprotocol
• On Twitter

Thanks for reading and have a wonderful rest of your week!

Hi everyone!

Welcome to the latest edition of your pseudo-monthly JMP update!

In case it’s been a while since you checked out JMP, here’s a refresher: JMP lets you send and receive text and picture messages (and calls) through a real phone number right from your computer, tablet, phone, or anything else that has a Jabber client.  Among other things, JMP has these features: Your phone number on every device; Multiple phone numbers, one app; Free as in Freedom; Share one number with multiple people.

Since our launch at the beginning of the summer, we’ve kept busy.  We saw some of you at the first FOSSY, which took place in July.  For those of you who missed it, the videos are out now.

Automatic refill for users of the data plan is in testing now.  That should be fully automated a bit later this month and will pave the way for the end of the waiting list, at least for existing JMP customers.

This summer also saw the addition of two new team members: welcome to Gnafu the Great who will be helping out with support, and Amolith, who will be helping out on the technical side.

There have also been several releases of the Cheogram Android app (latest is 2.12.8-2) with new features including:

• Support for animated avatars
• Show “hats” in the list of channel participants
• An option to show related channels from the channel details area
• Emoji and sticker autocomplete by typing ‘:’ (allows sending custom emoji)
• Tweaks to thread UI, including no more auto-follow by default in channels
• Optionally allow notifications for replies to your messages in channels
• Allow selecting text and quoting the selection
• Allow requesting voice when you are muted in a channel
• Send link previews
• Support for SVG images, avatars, etc.
• Long press send button for media options
• WebXDC importFiles and sendToChat support, allowing, for example, import and export of calendars from the calendar app
• Fix Command UI in tablet mode
• Manage permissions for channel participants with a dialog instead of a submenu
• Ask if you want to moderate all recent messages by a user when banning them from a channel
• Show a long streak of moderated messages as just one indicator

To learn what’s happening with JMP between newsletters, here are some ways you can find out:

• The chatroom remains the heart of the community.  You can also join from your web browser or from Matrix.
• The blog, where you may be reading this. It can also be followed in a client like Movim.
• The Lemmy Community
• The Subreddit
• On Twitter

Thanks for reading and have a wonderful rest of your week!

JMP has been in beta for over six years, and today we are finally launching! With feedback and testing from thousands of users, our team has made improvements to billing, phone network compatibility, and also helped develop the Cheogram Android app which provides a smooth onboarding process, good Android integration, and phone-like UX for users of that platform. There is still a long road ahead of us, but with so much behind us we’re comfortable saying JMP is ready for launch, and that we know we can continue to work with our customers and our community for even better things in the future.  Check out our launch on Product Hunt today as well!

JMP’s pricing has always been “while in beta” so the first question this raises for many is: what will the price be now? The new monthly price for a customer’s first JMP phone number is now $4.99 USD / month ($6.59 CAD), but we are running a sale so that all customers will continue to pay beta pricing of $2.99 USD / month ($3.59 CAD) until the end of August. We are extending until that time the option for anyone who wishes to prepay for up to 3 years and lock-in beta pricing. Contact support if you are interested in the prepay option. After August, all accounts who have not pre-paid will be put on the new plan with the new pricing. Those who do pre-pay won’t see their price increase until the end of the period they pre-paid for.  The new plan will also include a multi-line discount, so second, third, etc JMP phone numbers will be $2.45 USD / month ($3.45 CAD) when they are set to all bill from the same balance.  The new plan will also finally have zero-rated toll free calling.  All other costs (per-minute costs, etc) remain the same, see the pricing page for details.

The account settings bot now has an option “Create a new phone number linked to this balance” so that you can get new numbers using your existing account credit and linked for billing to the same balance without support intervention.

Thanks so much to all of you who have helped us get this far.  There is lots more exciting stuff coming this year, and we are so thankful to have such a supportive community along the way with us.  Don’t forget we’ll be at FOSSY in July, and be sure to check out our launch on Product Hunt today as well.

Hi everyone!

Welcome to the latest edition of your pseudo-monthly JMP update!

In case it’s been a while since you checked out JMP, here’s a refresher: JMP lets you send and receive text and picture messages (and calls) through a real phone number right from your computer, tablet, phone, or anything else that has a Jabber client.  Among other things, JMP has these features: Your phone number on every device; Multiple phone numbers, one app; Free as in Freedom; Share one number with multiple people.

It has been a while since we got a newsletter out, and lots has been happening as we race towards our launch.

For those who have experienced the issue with Google Voice participants not showing up properly in our MMS group texting stack, we have a new stack in testing right now.  Let support know if you want to try it out, it has been working well so far for those already using it.

If you check your account settings for the “refer a friend” option you will now see two kinds of referral code.  The list of one-time use codes remains the same as always: a free month for your friend, and a free month’s worth of credit for you if they start paying.  The new code up in the top is multi-use and you can post and share it as much as you like.  It provides credit equivalent to an additional month to anyone who uses it on sign up after their initial $15 deposit as normal, and then a free month’s worth of credit for you after that payment fully clears.

We mentioned before that much of the team will be present at FOSSY, and we can now reveal why: there will be a conference track dedicated to XMPP, which we are helping to facilitate!  Call for proposals ends May 14th. Sign up and come out this summer!

For quite some time now, customers have been asked while registering if they would like to enable others who know their phone number to discover their Jabber ID, to enable upgrading to end-to-end encryption, video calls, etc.  The first version of this feature is now live, and users of at least Cheogram Android and Movim can check the contact details of anyone they exchange SMS with to see if a Jabber ID is listed.  We are happy to announce that we have also partnered with Quicksy to allow discovery of anyone registered for their app or directory as well.

Jabber-side reactions are now translated where possible into the tapback pseudo-syntax recognized by many Android and iMessage users so that your reactions will appear in a native way to those users.  In Cheogram Android you can swipe to reply to a message and enter a single emoji as the reply to send a reaction/tapback.

There have been two Cheogram Android releases since our last newsletter, with a third coming out today.  You no longer need to add a contact to send a message or initiate a call.  The app has seen the addition of moderation features for channel administrators, as well as respecting these moderation actions on display.  For offensive media arriving from other sources, in avatars, or just not moderated quickly enough, users also have the ability to permanently block any media they see from their device.

Cheogram Android has seen some new sticker-related features including default sticker packs and the ability to import any sticker pack made for signal (browse signalstickers.com to find more sticker packs, just tap “add to signal” to add them to Cheogram Android).

There are also brand-new features today in 2.12.1-5, including a new onboarding flow that allows new users to register and pay for JMP before getting a Jabber ID, and then set up their very own Snikket instance all from within the app.  This flow also features some new introductory material about the Jabber network which we will continue to refine over time:

Notifications about new messages now use the conversation style in Android.  This means that you can set seperate priority and sounds per-conversation at the OS level on new enough version of Android.  There is also an option in each conversation’s menu to add that conversation to your homescreen, something that has always been possible with the app but hopefully this makes it more discoverable for some.

For communities organizing in Jabber channels, sometimes it can be useful to notify everyone present about a message.  Cheogram Android now respects the attention element from members and higher in any channel or group chat.  To send a message with this priority attached, start the message body with @here (this will not be included in the actual message people see).

This release also brings an experimental prototype supporting WebXDC.  This is an experimental specification to allow developers to ship mini-apps that work inside your chats.  Take any *.xdc file and send it to a contact or group chat where everyone uses Cheogram Android and you can play games, share notes, shopping lists, calendars, and more.  Please come by the channel to discuss the future of this technology on the Jabber network with us.

To learn what’s happening with JMP between newsletters, here are some ways you can find out:

• The chatroom remains the heart of the community.  You can also join from your web browser or from Matrix.
• The blog, where you may be reading this. Can also be followed in a client like Movim.
• The Lemmy Community
• The Subreddit
• On Twitter

Thanks for reading and have a wonderful rest of your week!