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By Jon Cohen

Their is no doubt that FREE is GOOD! Blackberry users have known this for a few years now. Blackberry owners have had a leg up on the rest of the mobile phone market by offering a free service to allow users to chat with each other. The service was called PIN-ing in the beginning and developed to become an application on the Blackberry simply known as BBM.  I was a member of the elite club of BBM (Blackberry Messenger) users for many years. In fact I was lucky enough to be one of the first users in North America ( I hacked my blackberry at the time with the OS from China).

Today I am using an iPhone and it was a hard decision to make, switching away from RIM the Blackberry makers. But now after 6 months or so with the iPhone 3GS I am happy I have made the move.

A bit of history

It should be noted that I had been using the Blackberry since 2003 and was a HUGE fan of the device. I had owned over 10 different models in the 6.5 years of using Blackberry and I was always wanting the newest and best model. I had gone as far as buying US models of the phone and unlocking them to work here in Canada. (Ironic since RIM is a Canadian company) So the title of Blackberry FanBoy would have been appropriate.

I did indeed try twice before 2009 to move away from the Blackberry by getting the original iPhone and the iPhone 3G. In both older models of iPhone I was not happy with the speed, the functionality and the lack of key features. It should be noted as well the the two iPhones mentioned were using OS 1.0 and 2.0, both an immature operating system in my opinion.

Back to the future

Now that I have made the move to iPhone, it would be very hard for me to go back to the Blackberry. I really love the iPhone and all of the Apps that are on the App. store. The two things that I found are missing on the iPhone when compared to the Blackberry where; 1. Spell Check, 2. Chat Client like BBM.

Well it was pointed out to me by a friend that Apple does have an App. for Spell check, it is not free but it does work most of the time. But until today Apple didn’t have an App. for Chat. This is were “Ping” [iTunes Link] comes in. It is a slick chat client that will give you a nice clean look and feel and also offers a unique user name for your iPhone or iPod Touch. With this unique user name this App. gives iPhone users the same FREE chatting capability that PIN-ing gave Blackberry users in the early days while still embedded this functionality in an App.

Ping is not perfect, but it will get there. Right now the App. which launched on Sept. 29th. 2009 is getting a lot of good hype and more and more users are joining Ping by downloading the App. and signing up. (No actual sign up is required)

The early tests I have done on Ping have shown great function, it is easy to use, and it is quick and the notification option works like it is suppose to.

Their are a few concerns that I have and I hope to interview the developer to see if he can address these issues.

Firstly if Ping can grow and still function? With so many users of the iPhone can a P2P chat app scale to handle the large volume of iPhone users.

Second, what is the privacy policy? Since the chat is P2P it must so through Ping’s servers and because of that I would want to know if it is encrypted, as well if it is publicly visible to anyone other then the two people chatting.

Third, user name? How is Ping going to avoid the issues that have plagued Twitter and Facebook with regards to user names being untrue. I expand on this questions by using this example;  if Oprah is my user name what will stop me from letting people believe that I am the real Oprah (TV Star)? How can Ping police this, what is there plans to validate the user is who they say they are.

Forth, Battery drain. Since I have installed Ping I have noticed a bit of battery drain (5%-10% loss)  and I assume that since Ping does use notification service that when I turn that function off my battery life will improve. It would be great if the developers of Ping would be able to figure out a way to improve battery life while keeping notification on.

In closing, as it stands today, Spell Check App and Ping App fill the only two voids I had on my iPhone following the switchover. If Ping can not or does not address user concerns thenI will have no choice but to re-think if I’d want to continue to use this App. My assumption is that like most developers the authors of Ping [iTunes Link] will want to have a great product and will welcome constructive feedback like the kind listed above. Once again I will state that Ping is a great App. Go out and  downloaded it ASAP (While it is still free).