WhatsApp : iPhone-to-iPhone Messaging Application

More and more people are seeing the light and getting themselves an iPhone. I have never seen a phone become so popular so quickly in all my time following tech gadget movements. One good thing that has arisen from this phenomenon are applications that allow for free (free as in no SMS charge) iPhone-to-iPhone messaging.

For the last couple of months I have been using Ping. While the interface is simple to follow, I didn’t like the inaccuracy of the timestamps, especially when it came to international Ping messages – I had no idea when the message was really sent. Therefore decisions of whether to reply immediately or not were effected.

Earlier this week, a good friend introduced me to WhatsApp. It’s another iPhone-to-iPhone messaging application that amongst other things, fixes the timestamping issue of messages – so far it has provided correct times of when messages were actually sent to me.

Take a look below of what I mean:

I like how WhatsApp integrates with your iPhone address book and from startup identifies who in your contacts lists is already also running WhatsApp. Saves you from having to spam your friends with a request to find out who’s already on.

Another major differentiating point, is WhatsApp’s status functionality. You can set a status for yourself, to let your WhatsApp friends know what you are up to e.g. if you’re in a meeting and don’t want to be disturbed, simply adjust your status to describe this.

Why Use WhatsApp Vs Other iPhone Messengers

• No Monthly Cost: Once you have the application you can use it to chat as much as you want. Sendn a million messages a day to your friends for free! WhatsApp uses 3G/EDGE/WiFi
• No International Charges: Chat with your friends in other countires if they have iPhone and WhatsApp installed. Avoid those pesky international SMS costs
• No PINs or Usernames: Why even bother having to remember yet another PIN or username? WhatsApp works just like SMS would work (via phone numbers) and it integrates with your phone address book
• No Need To Log In/Out: No more confusion about getting logged off from another computer or device. With push notifications WhatsApp is ALWAYS ON and ALWAYS connected
• No Need to Add Buddies: Your Address Book is used to automatically connect you with your contacts. Your friends with WhatsApp will be automatically displayed in Favorites similar to a buddy list
• Offline Messages: Even if you miss your push notifications, WhatsApp will save your messages offline until you retrieve them during next application start
• Status: Use the status feature of WhatsApp to tell your contacts if you are busy or available for a chat and more. You can even get notified via push notifications when your friends and contacts change their mobile status

WhatsApp is my favorite iPhone messaging app the moment for all the above reasons. I hope this will encourage my other iPhone friends to consider downloading and installing this app…you know how you are…

If you discover a better one please make sure you let us know via the comments below.