Ping! v1.0

Are you tired of trying to stay within your text messaging limit?  Tired of paying for unlimited messaging so you don’t have to worry about it?  Then this might be the app for you, if you’re patient enough to wait for all the bugs to get worked out.  Right now the app is a little rough around the edges.  Its heart and soul are in the right place but there is some work to be done.  The basic idea of the app is to use push notifications (there they are again) to send messages instead of texting.  Pretty simple concept and it could save you a bunch of money.

All right, let’s cut to the chase.  The first issue that I noticed is a near fatal one.  While there is support for landscape, the execution needs some work.  When moving to landscape the screen does not adjust properly and you can no longer see what you’re typing or all of the conversation, even if you attempt to scroll.

Fear not I got a couple of my friends, even my wife, to download and try this app.  Everyone experienced some troubles.  Everything from connection issues to it freezing up the phone.  Keep in mind when we were trying it, it was free.  At this time there is a charge for it.  I fully understand that there needs to be money made to support the push server, so I have no trouble with that.  I’m only saying that there needs to be some improvement to the bugs before you start charging for it.

Like I said, the core is good.  There is a screen for listing conversations, a well done screen for the actual conversation and the settings screen is straight forward and to the point.  I did notice that the entered text during a new message would flicker some while typing.  Nothing major but probably an indicator of something larger wrong, but what do I know?

***Please note that a new version has been released that claims to fix some of these issues.  I will be reviewing that release soon.

What I thought in a nutshell!
Use-ability
How user friendly is the app and its interface?
Practicality
How likely is it that someone is going to use it?
Neat Factor
Will this app wow you?

Overall
How did it fair overall?