CrackBerry Asks: Do you use PIN to PIN messaging on your BlackBerry?

i say get rid of it. out with the old in the new. bring on BB10, we wont need a feature like pin to pin when we have a new BBM with VIDEO! #BB10FTW

I believe I've used the feature ONCE when I got my first BB which was the Storm. I'm with you on your opinion about how it will be phased out. Is there any benefits to using PIN messaging anymore with access to email and BBM? It all goes thru the NOC on BIS or BES.

Maybe because I'm on BIS, and everyone I have PIN's for uses BBM, I don't see a need for PIN messaging anymore. Pinning is basically emailing, and if you have a PIN, chances are, you will probably be using BBM and instant msging instead of a form of emailing.

I think I've used it 4 times over the 5 or so years owning a BB.

I use for emergency messaging, I have my profiles set so that a PIN message will sound loudly even in silent mode...so for example if a loved one needed me in the middle of the night, a PIN message will always wake me up.

I use it to get the attention of my fellow managers. Emails can unread sometimes but when a red coloured message comes in, they read it. In addition to that, a lot of them haven't adjusted their PIN message notification so it makes a noise too...lol

I hope they keep it because it adds a level of HEY READ ME.

Still use them quite often when contacting certain colleagues and friends, BBM's often get lost in the clutter but the red text of the PIN message is an attention grabber!

I'll use it as a test to isolate a problem if it's BES or carrier related. PIN bypasses the BES, so if PIN fails, many times that indicative of a problem with the device setup, or Carrier.

Never used it, never saw the point when I had BBM...but reading the above suggestions, I can see how it might be useful in certain, limited, circumstances. But RIM could dump it tomorrow, and I wouldn't care at all.

I see I'm one of the few that still use it often lol

It is the main source of communication within my company, some of the "older" guys refuse to use BBM lol so PIN it is :)

I used PIN a few times, there are 2 pet peeves about PIN messaging:

1) You only see it sent from a PIN if you don't have the PIN within your BB Contacts (it wouldn't "intelligently" locate the name from BBM, maybe it's a security issue?)

2) You only get "delivered", but never knew whether the other party "read" it or not, maybe I'm just too spoiled by BBM

We use them in broadcasting a lot. The term "BlackBerry them" usually means to fire off a PIN message. It offers more real-time communicating/delivery notification than an email would, but allows you to PIN someone who you might not have (or want to have) on BBM, such as a top level boss, etc. I'd hate to see them disappear.

We use PIN messaging constantly for internal communication; my understanding is that it is THE most secure form of peer to peer coommunication.
There isn't the universality of the BBM status / comments etc., nor does the data remain on any server anywhere BIS or BES. I could be wrong, but don't think so.

the sad part is people dont know that pin messaging is the lower form of BBM essentally when ever you BBM a contact it is sending a pin message in the background in a chat format. PIN messaging shares the same d and r that BBM has built into it. Just my 2 cents being i was taught this internally but yea it cant be removed as BBM is using it.

PIN-to-PIN messaging is usually used as a corporate solution; reason is because a) the alerts are different and usually defaulted, b) because it confirms inequivocably that its been delivered (no excuses) and c) it's visually identifiable to the recipient that they should respond.

I've worked at countless corporations and highlighted the specific need to have them implement this for Health & Safety or Security teams. I learned this 10yrs ago while working at BNSF as a contractor and it was a lesson well learned and kept me earning. Powerful stuff.

I think MikeyBallast is correct that PIN is THE MOST SECURE BB communication. I could be wrong, but my understanding is this is why it is popular with governments/politicians and criminals. I too could be wrong, but don't think so.

For myself, I have only used a few times, as a test to see how it works, and to test BB connectivity issues.

I use it sometimes because it's quite the attention grabber. Also, you are able to send PIN messages to people who are not BBM contacts

Since I was the only BB'er in my crowd I only used it once and that was doing some testing on the crackberry site a few years ago.

Not sure if this was an isolated case but PIN messages were the only form of reliable communicating during the early days of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans. Calls and SMS would fail but PIN would go through.

PIN is old school. If you had a blackberry before BBM came out, you would PIN someone to save money on texts charges and it was faster than email. When a group of us would travel to the US, we would PIN each other to avoid the draconian overseas text charges and it was more conversational and quicker than an email. BBM has pretty much rendered it useless.

* BlackBerry by choice *
I've always thought that the PIN messaging part of a BlackBerry was very much the predecessor to BBM. And therefore just one of those things that is still part of the BBOS because BBM is a glorified PIN messaging system. If BBM will no longer be based on PIN messaging then it will likely go the way of the dinosaur. Otherwise, BBM is the app that takes advantage of it and uses it to its fullest extent.

In short couple of paragraphs this points out the significant pros, and cons, of PIN to PIN:

theverge dot com/2012/7/17/3165411/ny-governor-cuomo-email-bbm-pin-messaging

The only people Iknow with BlackBerries are clients, and I don't BBM with them. My dream is that BB10 is going to become big enough in the U.S. that I will use it in the future!

I may have used it ten times in ten years.

BBM is the way to go; I never really understood why PIN messages were better than any other, except that you could use them when email is down or when you want to bypass email. Maybe poor marketing, maybe poor understanding on my part.

I use it sometimes. My opinion is to keep it. It's a distinctive RIM/BlackBerry only feature that sets us apart. It also doesn't hurt to have more alternate ways to communicate on a communications device. It wont hinder a persons general or normal usage to have extra features on their devices.

Much more secure then anything else, BIS users can send encrypted text to other BB users using pin to pin without having BES. Definitely a keeper!!!!!!

Exactly once in the past 3-ish years, and only because I was wondering what it was.

never used it myself, but i received one of these once from my brother and was quite confused. i didn't change my PIN settings at all so it was quite the attention grabber what with the loud alert, the vibrate and the red text.

Bold 9900 - Playbook 32GB - Lumia 800

I've used it on one occasion when bbm was down. Not since then though. I doubt I'd miss its absence

I say just leave it. Doesn't hurt to keep it there. I use it if I have a long message or story I wanna send to someone on bbm.

If Blackberry gets rid of Pin To Pin, I will get rid of my blackberry. A lot of people use the pin to pin for security reasons. If I had to choose BBM or PIN, I would throw BBM in the TRASH.....

Used to use pin to pin, but sadly I now have more "text messaging contacts" within my BBM than actual BBM contacts.

Only a few of those used to use Pin messaging in the first place.. Ugghhh I hope BB10 is good so I can get some BBM contacts back

I really think it will be nice to keep this feature, maybe rename it and even give it some publicity in BB10.

I use it often to message people with blackberry who i don't want to add to my BBM list i.e PIN on an advert or a BBM request from someone i don't immediately recognize

Like someone said, its a unique BB only feature and it doesn't hurt to keep it. its also another way to communicate and there can be nothing wrong with that. if the ICT world is still keeping SMS, BB PIN message can't hurt

Keep it please

Pin to Pin has one of the the feature which is better than BBM, Pin to Pin is a email (plain text email) with subject, in BBM you can only send message with long sentence at the best.

Keep the Pin to Pin dont hurt anybody, so why not?

One. perhaps not well known advantage of PIN Message: Using a BES you can use the encryption key of your BES - so unlike BBM - RIM does not have the ability to decrypt your message. This feature has to be set up on the BES otherwise its the BBM key.

The use of PIN is great from a privacy aspect. Instead of having someone on your BBM list for the world to see, you can just contact them through PIN. For what reason someone would want to keep certain things private, that's up to them, but is still has it's uses

PIN messaging always takes me back to the North American power outage of 2003. With most of Ontario dark for 3 days, mail servers were down, ISPs were up and down, mobile coverage was spotty, and since most people use PBXs or cordless phones, even voice calls were hit and miss. My BB 957on Mobitex hadn't been charged for 3 days but still had 80% battery remaining, so PIN messages were the only way to communicate with the office to coordinate getting our customers back online as power was slowly restored substation by substation. The virtually guaranteed delivery and speed of PIN messaging made it indispensable.

Whoever keeps saying that BBM will ONLY use blackberry ID, abandoning PIN's they're WRONG.

RIM never even said they would be abandoning it. So who the HELL came up with that? Where did RIM say they would be abandoning it? When? They NEVER did. Also, to those not appreciating BBM, sucks to be you. Delete it if you don't want it, you heard me clearly.

I used PIN messaging a few times and I think it's an asset. Helping a few people on the forums directly was so much easier that way due to a few issues happening with data services on my carrier a few times and also, each message didn't use kilobytes, just BYTES. So very little data was used and it was FAST! Just like IRC, very little data is used with PIN to PIN (blackberry to blackberry) communication.

I know RIM isn't going to remove it, so why do others think so?

Let's say if we lost our device, we could either harass the thief or ask nicely to get our device back using PIN to PIN from our friend's blackberry,

Maybe set up a PIN to PIN spam campaign, tell every single blackberry user you know to send spam to the stolen device everyday. that could make anyone stealing our device regret taking it.

Hahaha..