One feature people ask about from time to time is stickers.  Now, “stickers” isn’t really a feature, nor is it even universally agreed what it means, but we’ve been working on some improvements to Cheogram Android (and the Cheogram service) to make some sticker workflows better, released today in 2.12.1-3.  This post will mostly talk about those changes and the technical implications; if you just want to see a demo of some UI you may want to skip to the video demo.

Many Android users already have pretty good support for inserting stickers (or GIFs) into Cheogram Android via their keyboard.  However, as the app existed at the time, this would result in the sender re-uploading and the recipient re-downloading the sticker image every time, and fill up the sending server and receiving device with many copies of the same image.  The first step to mitigating this was to switch local media storage in the app to content-addressed, which in this case means that the file is named after the hash of its contents.  This prevents filling up the device when receiving the same image many times.

Now that we know the hashes of our stored media, we can use SIMS to transmit this hash when sending.  If the app sees an image that it already has, it can display it without downloading at all, saving not only space but bandwidth and time as well.  The Cheogram service also uses SIMS to transmit hashes of incoming MMS images for this purpose as well.

An existing Jabber client which uses the word “stickers” is Movim.  It wouldn’t make sense to add the word to our UI without supporting what they already have.  So we added support for XHTML-IM including Bits of Binary images.  This also relies on hash-based storage or caching, which by now we had.  This tech will also be useful in the future to extend beyond stickers into custom emoji.

Some stickers are animated, and users want to be able to send GIFs as well, so the app was updated to support inline playback of animated images (both GIF and WebP format).

Some users don’t have any sticker support in their keyboard or OS, so we want to provide some tools for these users as well.  We have added the option to download some default sticker packs (mostly curated from the default set from Movim for now) so that users start with some options.  We also built a small proxy to allow easily importing stickers intended for signal by clicking the regular “add to signal” links on eg signalstickers.com.  Any sticker selected from these will get sent without even uploading, saving time and space on the server, and then will be received by any user of the app who has the default packs installed with no need for downloading, with fallbacks for other clients and situations of course.

If a user receives a sticker that they’d like to save for easily sending out again later, they can long-press any image they receive and choose “Save as sticker” which will prompt them to choose or create a sticker pack to keep it in, then save it there.  Pointing a sticker sheet app or keyboard at this directory also allows re-using other sticker selection UIs with custom stickers saved in this way.

Taken together we hope these features produce real benefits for users of stickers, both with and without existing keyboard support, and also provide foundational work that we can build upon to provide custom emoji, thumbnails before downloading, URL previews, and other rich media features in the future.  If you’d like to see some of these features in action, check out this short video.

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.

JMP is 6 years old today!  When we launched in 2017 we had no idea exactly how far we’d go, or that we’d be making one of the most popular chat clients on F-Droid (that is Cheogram Android, which is based on Conversations).  Last year we called JMP “phone-feature-complete” and since then we’ve made all of JMP’s features even easier to use, shepherding big improvements to various Jabber clients, including Movim and Dino, while continuing to provide first-class telephony and messaging features in our flagship mobile app: Cheogram Android.

With so many of the edges now smoothed, and a new onboarding flow almost ready to go, it’s now time to announce: JMP will be leaving beta this year!

What does that mean?  Primarily this is our vote of confidence (as the JMP and Cheogram team) that JMP, and apps we develop such as Cheogram Android, are ready for widespread use.  While of course there will still be improvements to make, we believe it will be able to be recommended to your friends and family (especiall Android users) without reservation.

Naturally there are a couple things to do yet to make that happen, and one of them is to put Cheogram Android in the Play Store at last.  This will be a paid (but still free-as-in-freedom) app that will include one month of JMP service.  Of course, you will still be able to get Cheogram Android from all the other places you can already get it (such as F-Droid and our own repos/APKs).

The other main thing is to set a final post-beta monthly price for JMP.  And, while it won’t take effect until we launch later this year, we are able to now officially announce it: US$4.99/month, with incidental pricing remaining the same (i.e. extra/international minutes will remain what they are now).  Note that there will be discounts for additional JMP numbers linked to your primary JMP number, and also (before JMP leaves beta) a chance to lock in the existing pricing for a period of time.  Having never changed the price since we started JMP 6 years ago, and given the inflation and our own staffing costs since then, we feel the new price will allow JMP to remain both sustainable, and able to face new challenges and exciting opportunities going forward (like the EU’s DMA, for one).  We want to make JMP the best phone number service, and Cheogram the best gateway to everything in the world!

Speaking of Cheogram, a JMP newsletter these days wouldn’t be complete without mention of new Cheogram Android features (2.12.1-2 released in APK form and Cheogram F-Droid repo today!):

• it will now offer to setup Dialer integration automatically when available
• the Call Logs (cdrs) command replaces the usage command (giving you more info)
• the new onboarding flow is improved even more
  
• admins of a Snikket instance can create a new Jabber ID and JMP number all inside the app now (see the video demo)
• new theme: any colour you want! (requires Android 11 or higher)

Note that the Call Logs (cdrs) command will roll out to everyone in about a week.  If you’d like to try it before then, please send a private inquiry to JMP support and we’ll activate it for you.

Lastly, some of you may be interested to know that the JMP/Cheogram team are going to be venturing out to a conference for the first time since March 2020!  In particular, most of the JMP/Cheogram team will be attending FOSSY this year, in Portland, Oregon, USA this July 13-16.  We’ll be announcing specifics of our involvement (whether we have a booth, talks, etc.) closer to the dates.  In the meantime, just know we’ll be there, and would love to chat with any JMP/Cheogram users, prospective customers, or otherwise!

With that, we’ll cap off our 6 years. :)  And what an exciting 6 years it’s been!  With the big launch this year, you can bet on many more to come!

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!

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.

This month we released Cheogram Android 2.12.1-1 which includes several new features.  One of the big ones is an interface for having threaded conversations with other Jabber users (watch the demo video).  This feature will also make it easier to reply to the right message if you use the email gateway.  The app has grown support for more media features, including an ability to show an image right away if you already have it, without waiting for a download, and blurhash based placeholders for images from MMS you have not yet downloaded.

There is also a new user experience when receiving group texts that will actually show the sender’s name (and even avatar, if you have one set for them locally) the same way as any other group chat in the app.  This is made possible by a new draft protocol extension we adopted for part of the purpose.

This version is based on the latest 2.12.1 from upstream, which among other things has added the ability to function as a Unified Push distributor, so if you use any compatible app you may want to check that out.

For the JMP service, this month we shipped the ability to make top-up payments using XMR or ETH directly from the top up command.  This simplifies the flow for users of those currencies, and we hope you will find it useful.  Integrating this support into registration is also coming, but not ready quite yet.

If you are planning to be at FOSDEM 2023, be sure to check out the realtime lounge in with the other stands.  Unfortunately no one from JMP will be there this year, but people from Snikket and other projects around the ecosystem will be present.

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!

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.

Cheogram Android 2.11.0-1 has been released, including an important fix for creating new private group chats.  For some months creating such a group (a Jabber group, not a “group text”) with Cheogram Android has resulted in a public channel on many servers.  Please double-check your private groups and change settings if necessary!  This release will also be the first accepted into F-Droid with an up-to-date version of libwebrtc, so if you’ve had any issues with calls and use the F-Droid build, we recommend upgrading and trying again.  This release also adds support for tagging channels and group chats (on supporting servers, such as Snikket), better use of locales to determine what country code to prepend when dialling, a new OLED black theme, and more.

The data plan roll out continues, accelerating in December but we know there are still many of you waiting.  Thank you so much for your patience, and to all the feedback we have received from users so far.  We are actively working on making the signup process self-serve so that the waitlist will no longer be necessary in the future.

When JMP started we were just one part-time person.  As we grow, the legal structures that fit that time no longer do.  This fall we incorporated the MBOA Technology Co-operative to house JMP, Togethr, consulting work, and other activity.  This gives all our employees full agency in the company and gives us a firm legal footing for the future.  Nothing changes for you at this time, we’re still the same team, and for the time being you don’t even change the name you write on the cheques, nevertheless it marks a milestone in our life as a company.

Year in Review

This year, JMP and Snikket CIC made a deal to offer Jabber hosting as an option for JMP customers. This service is included in the regular JMP subscription and will eventually be the default option for new users during the sign-up process. JMP customers have been able to participate in a beta version of this integration, and JMP customers can contact JMP support to set up a Snikket instance directly.

This year also saw international calling added to our list of features. JMP users are able to use as many minutes per month as they like, with approximately 120 minutes of credit to USA and Canada included by default. Customers are able to pay for additional minutes and make international calls, although users who are still paying with the old PayPal system will not have access to these features (or other features such as the data plan). We also implemented a per-calendar-month overage limit system, where customers can set their own limits to avoid unexpected charges. The default limit is currently set at $0/month.

One of our most popular features has always been our voicemail and transcription, this year we expanded that to support multi-lingual transcriptions as well.

We also added multi-account billing this year, an alpha for JMP use from Matrix, added two employees, created new bot commands for account management, launched Togethr to help people take control of their social media identity, added support for SMS-only ports and the option to disable voicemail, built an XMPP integration for Chatwoot, and launched the JMP data plan.

This year saw the launch and rapid development of the Cheogram Android app, forked from Conversations and including these and other improvements:

• Add contacts without typing @cheogram.com
• Integrate with the native Android Phone app (optional)
• Address book integration (optional)
• Option to start group texts easily
• Command UI for better interactions with our and other bots (you can even sign up entirely from within the app!)
• Rich text message display (including stickers from Movim users)
• Data de-duplication for files sent/received multiple times
• Message retraction
• Ability to edit tags on contacts and channels
• Tag navigation widget for easier conversation management
• Ability to copy any link in a message to the clipboard
• F-Droid repositories for quick updates of official builds

Blog posts this year included: How to use Jabber from SMS, Why Bidirectional Gateways Matter, Computing International Call Rates with a Trie, Privacy and Threat Modelling, SMS Account Verification, and Writing a Chat Client from Scratch.

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!

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.

October saw the release of Cheogram Android 2.10.10-3, the largest release in awhile.  The app now stores data de-duplicated, so if you send or receive the same file multiple times only one copy will be stored.  This also lays the groundwork for some new file transfer improvements that will be coming in the future.  The app also now supports displaying rich text messages sent by clients which support that (such as Gajim), including the image protocol needed to display stickers sent by Movim users.  A form of message retraction is also supported, and should work with most Jabber clients out there.  A reminder that message retraction is a social convention and not a security feature – the target still has a full copy of your un-retracted message if they want it.

We know lots of you have big contact lists, across multiple accounts, and that’s why this release introduces the ability to edit tags on your contacts and a tag navigation widget integrated into contact search: to make finding the right conversation just a little bit easier.  We would love to hear feedback about this UI and how well it works for you.

For those of you who start a lot of group texts, there is an easy way to do that built into the app now as well.  When you start a “private group chat” and select only @cheogram.com contacts, you will be prompted to ask if you meant to start a group text instead.  This flow seemed necessary, as many have accidentally created private channels with their SMS contacts instead of the intended group text, so checking at this point was likely to be necessary anyway.

There are also some smaller quality of life improvements in this release, including the ability to copy any link in a message to the clipboard (not just the first one), dumping app logs to a special directory on your device after every call in order to make debugging issues easier, asking if you want to keep app data on uninstall (to make switching back and forth to custom builds possible without always needing export/re-import), a new first-start welcome screen, performance improvements, and more.

As JMP grows so does our support load.  Up until this month we have been managing all our support requests using normal Jabber clients (mostly Gajim and Dino), which worked well enough but less and less well as we grew.  It would be hard to know if someone else was handling a request, who had previously handled a request, or even what the status of some requests were (if they had been resolved elsewhere in the public channel or otherwise).  We’re a small enough team that we can just talk to each other to solve these things, but that does take time, and more time as there are more things to talk out.  So this month we built an XMPP channel integration for Chatwoot and have migrated our main support infrastructure to a Cheogram-hosted instance.  So far we like this a lot, and so much we’ve decided to share.  If you have a project that handles support using Jabber (or SMS with JMP!) you can use it on the Cheogram Chatwoot instance.  Just come by the chatroom and let us know you’re interested.  Only the XMPP channel works on our instance for now, but we’d be happy to enable other channels as well if that would be useful.

And finally, we know many of you are excited about the JMP Data Plan.  Roll out to the waiting list has gone a bit slower than we hoped, but many SIMs did go out in October.  There have been some bumps as you might expect with any test phase, but overall things are looking good and we hope to speed up the roll out and even move on to the next phase soon.

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!

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.

This month sees the release of Cheogram Android 2.10.10-2, based on a new upstream version and with many bugfixes and small improvements, especially around the Command UI. We also now have our own F-Droid repositories for quick update of official builds from us. We have a repository for releases and for those who want to help testing new features as they are developed we also have a repository for pre-releases.

Some JMP customers forward their calls to another voicemail service, or otherwise do not have need for the JMP voicemail.  This month we added an official option to the Configure Calls command that allows disabling voicemail completely for users who need this.

The default voicemail outgoing message has been changed from saying “a user of JMP.chat” to specifying what JMP number has been reached.  Anyone with a name or nickname or custom voicemail greeting set is not affected by this change.

As a small improvement for multi-account billing users, renewal transactions now specify what number is being renewed by the transaction.

Cheogram (and thus JMP) is now allowing all users to opt-in to Jabber ID discoverability.  This is to allow users to discover the true Jabber ID behind a phone number so they can upgrade to end-to-end encryption, video calling, high quality media sharing, etc.  This is opt-in only, and most features that make use of this are not built yet, but we wanted to give people the option to express their consent now.  This is done as part of the registration process.  For existing users, if you do not want to opt in, there is nothing you need to do.  If you wish to opt in, simply run the Register command, choose JMP, and it will ask for your consent (it will show if you use the bot as Current Value true for technical reasons, but do not worry it is set to false unless you explicitly answer yes to that question.)

This month we have also made some progress with the early test phase launch of our data-only SIM and eSIM program.  The program is slowly rolling out to the waiting list over the course of the next month, as we gather data and feedback from early users.  If you are interested, adding your Jabber ID to the waiting list is still the best way.  We have also heard the interest in having these available for people who are not otherwise JMP customers, and hope to have that ready for testing soon as well.

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!

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.

This month sees the addition of a new member to the team, you will see him in the chat as seki.  Seki joins us as a software developer and general team member, be sure to say hi!

Cheogram Android 2.10.9-1 has been released.  This release includes a major new feature: the Command UI.  The best place to see this feature is when talking to the bot at cheogram.com.  You will see a new tab labelled “Commands” that lets you interact with the bot using a nice UI instead of by sending specially-formatted chats.  This release also includes several fixes to URI display and copying, and is based on Conversations 2.10.9 upstream.  We have added a long-press menu on the list of all active conversations to perform quick actions (such as “pin to top”), added support for muting yourself from the dialler integration, changed the ringback sound to be more familiar to USA and Canada users, and various other small bugfixes.

JMP is actively working on providing cost-effective data-only eSIMs and SIM cards for users.  Pricing is not yet final, and there is some work to do before this is ready for the general public, but if you are interested please sign up for the wait list at the link above.  Our first launch will be with USA and Canada coverage, but other areas are possible in the future if there is interest.

This month we are also pleased to announce the launch of multi-account billing.  This feature allows customers to have one account be billed for all their JMP accounts, or those of their family.  To get started with this, please contact support and indicate the accounts that you want linked together.

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!

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.

This month the team has been hard at work on a new major feature for Cheogram Android: the command UI.  This feature will get rid of the need to configure your account with a clunky chat bot on mobile, replacing it with a fit-for-purpose native UI that can be viewed under the cheogram.com contact.  And because we are implementing it using only open standards, the UI will also work for other command-using entities out there.  The feature is not quite ready for first release, but if you want to come test a pre-release just drop by the chatroom (see below for how to get to the chatroom).

Almost since the beginning of JMP one of the favourite features has been our voicemail.  Reading your voicemails instead of having to “dial in” somewhere and listen to them is a real advantage for many users.  However, the transcription is far from perfect, sometimes being slow and completely missing support for any language other than English.  We are now testing an alternative engine with anyone who is interested, this new engine gets you the transcription faster and supports dozens of languages.  Come by the chatroom if you want to help test this out before we roll it out as a full replacement.

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!

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.

This month our team launched a new product to help people looking to take even more control of their digital life by hosting their own social media instance.  Read about Togethr, what it is today, and a glimpse of our future plans.

JMP now supports SMS-only ports.  Landlines and most numbers with VoIP providers (but not numbers with most mobile carriers) are eligible to have JMP provide SMS/MMS messaging services for the number, while voice and other services would remain with the current carrier.  This feature is in Alpha, contact support if you are interested.

This month also saw the release of Cheogram Android 2.10.6-1.  This version merges in the latest upstream release of Conversations, as well as fixes for the contacts integration and playback for some media types (most notably 3GPP videos).

Finally, our integration with Snikket hosting is coming along.  For all of this year JMP customers have been able to get into the Snikket hosting beta with the promise of never having to pay for the JMP-using Jabber IDs they host there.  Now, JMP customers no longer need to contact Snikket staff to be put into the regular beta queue.  Contact JMP support and we can set you up with a Snikket instance directly.  We will continue to work on this integration until someday it becomes a fully self-serve part of signup.

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!

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 JMP team is growing.  This month we added root, whom many of you will know from the chatroom.  root has been a valuable and helpful member of the community for quite some time, and we are pleased to add them to the team.  They will be primarily helping with support and documentation, but also with, let’s face it, everything else.

The account settings bot has a new command for listing recent financial transactions.  You can use this command to check on your auto top-ups, recent charges for phone calls, rewards for referrals, etc.  There is now also a command for changing your Jabber ID, so if you find yourself in a situation where you are changing for any reason you can do that yourself without waiting for support to do it manually.

This month also saw the release of Cheogram Android 2.10.5-2.  This version has numerous bug fixes for crashes and other edge cases and is based on the latest upstream code which includes a security fix, so be sure to update!  Support for TOR and extended connection settings has also been fixed, a new darker theme added, and UI tweaks to recognize that messages are often encrypted with TLS.

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!