Ping!

Gary Fung. He’s by no means new to the App Store. An independent developer for all things iPhone, we’ve seen him launch a mirage of applications, most of which have headlined for one reason or another. About a week ago, Fung launched his 11th. It’s name? Ping.

Free for a limited time to celebrate it’s worldwide launch, Ping is an instant messaging client which works rather like Blackberry Messenger, both over Wi-Fi, 3G and Edge. You choose a User ID to mask your iPhone phone number, and the people that send messages to that user ID, will be able to chat to you – freely. Not only that, but Ping offers to push your messages to you, via Apple’s Push Notification Service.

Over the past few months we’ve seen many iPhone instant messaging clients pop up, the more notable being: BeejiveIM [App Store] and AOL’s native AOL Instant Messenger (or AIM) [App Store]. Now these clients mainly focus on bringing you the ‘Full’ messaging experience. Ping is different. Ping acts as a quick, good-looking and user-friendly way to ‘ping’ your friends and family, on the move – and that’s exactly what it does. You won’t find picture messaging or the ability to send voice clips here.

Opening the app you’ll be asked for a user ID. You’ll want to think about which one you choose, as once you’ve chosen it – you’re stuck with it. Once you’ve done that you’ll be brought to Ping’s main chat interface. Although simple, Ping has a very likable iPhone-esque gray styled UI.

Starting at the bottom, you’ll find a toolbar with two buttons. The first (bottom left) is your settings panel. This displays your user ID, plus gives you options to turn push sound and vibration on and off. At the bottom of your Settings panel you’ll see also see a continuously update on what Ping’s service status is doing. The button of the right is pretty self explanatory. Mail. Lets pretend for a minute your friend you want to chat to doesn’t yet have Ping. Simply hit up this. You’ll immediately be thrown into Mail.app where a pre-fixed message about Ping is rendered. The rest is easy!

In the top right you’ll find your ‘Ping button’. Hit this when you want to start chatting. The chat interface is simple. It’s basically like sending an SMS. You enter the first few letters of a user ID, and Ping goes off in search of that contact. Simply input your message into the input box, hit send, and your chatting. iPhone-to-iPhone.

The conversation window is pretty bog-standard too. Opening a convosation you’ll see your friend’s user ID, up top. Messages are sent and received in shiny bubbles – although not ‘Apple’ type. Those, well, seem to .. cause trouble. At the top of the convo, just below the standard toolbar, you’ll see another curious option ‘Link to Address Book’. This is here in the situation of you’re talking to someone who is already present in your iPhone contacts. Tapping the button will allow you to select a contact from your address book, and assign the Ping user ID your currently chatting to, to a contact in your address book.

That’s basically Ping in a nutshell. Having used the app for a few days, I have to say I’m starting to like it. Yes, it’s not going to win awards for the best messaging client on the iPhone. Simply because, it’s lacking some major functionality.

But, for what it was designed for, which is a medium to send short, quick messages to your friends iPhone, it does the job – and well. Plus, currently the app is free!

For me, Ping is well worth your time.
Ping user ID: razorianfly.