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Home»BlackBerry Software»News & Rumors, BlackBerry Apps

PingChat! revamped and rebranded as Touch – a selective sharing chat application

by Alicia Erlich on 10 Dec 2011 03:22 PM
31
 

Touch by Enflick Touch by Enflick

There are a lot of cross-platform messenger apps floating around out there but if you've been a user of PingChat! then you're in for some good news. The folks over at Enflick let us know they've released a brand new version of PingChat! that paves the way for them to be more than just a chat platform and more like a close-knit social community. The update is so huge in fact that they've rebranded the app as Touch.

PingChat! or Touch, has been redesigned with a friendlier, more personal interface. It's new focus is to help you maintain important relationships and share photos and messages with friends and family rather than acquaintances who merely follow you on social sites. It's basically a closed-community of people you'd like to send or share photos or "experiences" with in addition to its chat messaging features. Touch can be linked to your Facebook account if you want to make these experiences public.

Current PingChat! members will be able to update their profile and sign in under their user ID/email or create a new one. Your contacts will instantly be ported over. Right off the bat I noticed they improved the speed of real-time conversations. 

Features

  • Chat - Message your friends through chats that feel like face-to-face conversations
  • Sharing - Share your life as it happens. Capture Experiences through photos, and share them with the right friends
  • Shared Experiences - Look back on the Experiences you've shared with your friends
  • Your Real Social Life - Your activity stream provides quick access to current social activity so that you can stay on top of your important relationships.

Touch now joins the popular iOS and Android community sharing app Path as a way to connect and share your life with only those closest to you. I for one think it's a pretty interesting concept, so why not head on over to BlackBerry App World and check it out.

More information / download Touch

Filed Under: News & Rumors, BlackBerry Apps; Tags: Blackberry cross-messaging apps, chat, PingChat, Touch
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31 Comments

Posted by sbx9900 Saturday, Dec 10, 2011 166 days ago

Will try this....it looks a lot better than the original....

 
 
Posted by BerryPotter Saturday, Dec 10, 2011 166 days ago

This upgrade is an actual downgrade. Loss of functionality plus no way of deleting chats for good. Pingchat was awesome. Have used it daily over the past year to stay in touch with friends abroad. I'm very disappointed with touch. Please bring back the ability to delete chats as well as send video. The new look is an upgrade, but that's about it. Plenty of other good cross platform apps to chose from so hopefully Touch will release an upgrade soon that at least returns the app to the level of pingchat.

 
 
Posted by obaquerizo Saturday, Dec 10, 2011 166 days ago

Have you try it in the bb 9900, as soon i get the updated in the appworld i did it and boom!! Error 102 in my bb, start the os from scrath 5 minutes later booom!!! Error 507, again os up.

Did you install it in OS 7 bb 9900. So i get a go again, i do use always pingchat and want to use the new version

 
 
Posted by derekting Sunday, Dec 11, 2011 166 days ago

Can you tell us more about the issue you're having at support.touch.com?

We would like to get to the root of this issue and help you get it resolved.

Thanks!

 
 
Posted by Blackberry_boffin Saturday, Dec 10, 2011 166 days ago

Slow, buggy, cold.
It seriously needs work.

 
 
Posted by derekting Sunday, Dec 11, 2011 166 days ago

We're continuing to refine the product and make it better.

Any bugs you come across, it'd be greatly appreciated if you can tell us at support.touch.com so we can fix it for the next updates.

Thanks!

 
 
Posted by djghettoredneck Saturday, Dec 10, 2011 166 days ago

The best one out now. I have tried them all even PingChat, which I didn't like, trying to keep my group in BBM together. This one did it for all of us, from BlackBerry to Droid and iOS. We have our group back. Thank you Touch. You should give it a try. From what I understand other great features are coming.

 
 
Posted by derekting Sunday, Dec 11, 2011 166 days ago

Great to hear! Glad that you're enjoying Touch. :)

 
 
Posted by Cafeina Saturday, Dec 10, 2011 166 days ago

It sounds like a cool app...it is exactly what I use BlackBerry groups for. If I needed something cross platform, I'd look into it.

 
 
Posted by owoseni1 Saturday, Dec 10, 2011 166 days ago

this app bricked my 9800. reloaded my OS twice and then finally did a complete divice install as new. after installing this app, my BB just kept on rebooting non stop. after the first OS reload, BB started rebooting again. i had to install just the OS and then choose which apps i wanted installed, that was the only way to get my BB to work. i just hate such crappy and buggy app that has not been properly tested. why dont they just info the general public that, it is still in Beta?

 
 
Posted by derekting Sunday, Dec 11, 2011 166 days ago

I am sorry for the issues you're experiencing.

We would like to do our best to help you resolve this issue - would you be able to followup with us regarding the issue above at support.touch.com?

Thanks!

 
 
Posted by linuxdaemon Saturday, Dec 10, 2011 166 days ago

Well, nice work on the name being a verb...But it will be creepy when people start saying "Oh hey, I'll Touch you later" :)

 
 
Posted by mas90guru Sunday, Dec 11, 2011 166 days ago

Did only about a day of testing but found the real time chat was very quick. I like the UI better than Whatsapp. Also unlike Whatsapp I found that I was able to use Touch on more than one device (BB and iPhone) without any problems (Whatsapp is tied into your phone number).

Unfortunately there are two things missing which would cause me to recommend WhatsApp over Touch:

1. Touch lacks integration to the inbox. The only indication you've received a new message is an icon -- no message is delivered to the inbox.

2. Touch lacks "send to" functionality. You cannot go into the images area of your BB and view an image and select the "send" option (from the standard BB menu) and send an image to Touch.

These are two pretty major omissions for a native BB app.

 
 
Posted by linuxdaemon Sunday, Dec 11, 2011 165 days ago

While it does feel fairly decent on the BlackBerry, #1 is a big deal for me. The fact that it doesn't integrate with the messages app is major turn-off.

 
 
Posted by derekting Sunday, Dec 11, 2011 165 days ago

Not to worry - this feature is in the works.

 
 
Posted by mas90guru Sunday, Dec 11, 2011 165 days ago

Two other issues I've noted in testing:

a. The Experience cannot have any additional images added after it is created. So if you're with friends commenting on an image - you better hope it's a short experience because you cannot upload any additional images after the experience is created. This seems like a big shortcoming and hopefully it will be created along with the second issue.

b. Cannot add video, audio to regular chat. The only thing a direct conversation supports is images -- although the response is very quick (Send/Deliver/Read).

 
 
Posted by gjrevans Thursday, Dec 15, 2011 162 days ago

We are working on both of these items :)

 
 
Posted by pineypl Saturday, Dec 10, 2011 166 days ago

Does this suck battery like a crack addict eating donuts?

 
 
Posted by CrackBerryDoctor Sunday, Dec 11, 2011 166 days ago

Like a crack addict eating powdered donuts.

 
 
Posted by PeterRei Sunday, Dec 11, 2011 166 days ago

And on my Curve it was slooooow.
By the way, it looks nice - but do we realy need another instant messenger?

 
 
Posted by wellard Sunday, Dec 11, 2011 165 days ago

Looks great but overall it's a downgrade for the following reasons:-

- Can't confirm my phone number so it keeps telling me to confirm it
- Whenever I upload a photo it says upload failed
-- Messages don't appear in the message inbox
- Home screen and LED notifcations take a long time to clear when the message has been read
- Can't delete past messages
- No option to delete the photos that failed to upload

It's a shame it hasn't been properly tested before release. I was using PingChat without issue for the past year but got to say that the UI in touch is much better than PingChat.

 
 
Posted by pshemek Monday, Dec 12, 2011 165 days ago

It doesn't start up on my Bold 9900. It shows the icon and then when I click it, it does nothing. I deleted straight away.

 
 
Posted by mhhendricks Monday, Dec 12, 2011 165 days ago

Sorry Crackberry guys. Like many commenting here, I too believe Touch to be a downgrade from PingChat. I have been using PingChat for over a year to chat with those non-blackberry friends and family and now I am stuck. I downloaded the "upgrade" and every time I launch it there is a prompt to Save the Permissions. Which I do and then it closes. The actual app NEVER OPENS. I have contacted Touch support at support.touch.com and received a quick response the first and they gave me a link to download a slightly different build, however it did not function any different than the first Touch version. I am running 3.0.0.1 but it will not launch. I learned after the fact that if you do upgrade to Touch that you cannot go back to PingChat because their system has converted you over and they explain that you cannot go back. Multiple contacts to them have resulted in no replies. BOY do I miss PingChat. I really miss PingChat. (I have a Blackberry 9700 on OS6 on TMobile)

 
 
Posted by gjrevans Thursday, Dec 15, 2011 162 days ago

Thanks for the feedback. We released an update to our website here: http://touch.com please let us know on twitter if it helped @touch

 
 
Posted by PostMortem Monday, Dec 12, 2011 164 days ago

Does this program work through wifi, or does it rely on BIS? I would download it just to have a backup in the event that BIS goes down. They have had more outages in the past year than ever before.

 
 
Posted by mhhendricks Monday, Dec 12, 2011 164 days ago

To answer your wifi question, the answer is yes. It works over wifi. It is working great on Google and iOS devices, but a little buggy on Blackberries. I have heard though that there will be a new bb version released this week in an attempt to fix some of the bugs. Good luck.

 
 
Posted by gjrevans Thursday, Dec 15, 2011 162 days ago

It uses BIS over wifi and then uses regular data where access to BIS is unavailable.

 
 
Posted by antikorr Sunday, Dec 18, 2011 159 days ago

It doesn't run on my Bold 9900 either. Been shouting out loud about that at the support page of the app. Developers said they are looking into it. Even released a new build to fix the problem, but - alas! - it didn't help. Touch 3.0.1 still doesn't wanna launch neither on my 9900 nor on my 9700...

:(

 
 
Posted by mariafurtado Sunday, Dec 18, 2011 159 days ago

Doesn´t run on Storm 2...

 
 
Posted by mariafurtado Sunday, Dec 18, 2011 159 days ago

Doesn´t run on Storm 2...

 
 
Posted by yddadoysohw Saturday, Jan 14, 2012 131 days ago

So i just tried reinstalling this today and found i couldn't sign in. It just gets stuck saying "Signing In" "Please wait..." and does nothing. I've submitted a ticket and am waiting a response from their support site. It used to work on my 9650 and recently switched to a 9930 but never really used it. Thought i'd give it a shot, but this comes up.