One of my biggest pet peeves is having to constantly check through text messages while I'm on my desktop or laptop at my desk. I've always thought it was be so much easier to have texts forward to one of my instant messengers, but a concept like that doesn't exactly exist (or at least not to my knowledge). We've shed light before on how you can replace your texting plan with a few free apps, but Textfree from Pinger really goes a step beyond that.
Textfree is available for both the iOS and Android platform. Both applications are completely free. I've got it installed on my iPod touch and it works just like any iPhone texting plan should.
Textfree usage and features are outlined on the application download pages, and there really isn't much that is too unique or special about the app. It simply works. Download the app and you are able to choose from a few numbers. With that number, you can send and receive an unlimited number of texts. With a subscription, you can even use this number to send calls from. One huge feature that I really enjoy is that you're able to send picture messages, something most other similar applications won't allow you to do.
With a paid subscription, you can also hide ads. Textfree comes with a lot of configurable settings. You can add a signature, change your tones, and set email notification preferences. It's very extensive and is definitely my recommended app of the niche.
The feature that has me completely sold on Textfree has not much to do with their iOS app at all though. Textfree has a web version of this application. With Textfree Web, you can sign up for a brand new Textfree texting number or login to your existing Textfree account and go from car to desk like nothing ever even changed!
Once logged in, sending texts from your desktop is just as easy as it was from your mobile app. It's a whole different approach when compared to the 10 other sites to send texts from that we've reviewed because of the synchronization between desktop and mobile. You have your own dedicated number, also. It's more like Google Voice than anything else.
The interface is a lot like Meebo and it truly behaves no differently than a web-based instant messaging client. This is the perfectly solution to simple and synchronized, desk-and-mobile texting and I can promise that it'll eventually find way into your list of never-to-be-closed tabs in your browser. Not to mention, 100% free? Count me in, please.
Textfree (or at least the iOS version) does come with a few small bugs. When switching to the mobile version from the web version, sometimes you'll see duplicates of the same message being sent. You also won't see your own replies to messages from your desktop on your mobile client. It makes conversation histories close to useless. Every now and then, your app might freeze due to loading the huge amount of "new" messages if you're switching back to mobile from the web. These are annoying, but a small price to pay for all of this functionality.
Try out Textfree. Let us know in the comments if you use any other messaging app.