Textfree Now with iPad, Touch Phone Numbers

Pinger has incorporated real phone numbers into its free texting service.

There's a slightly new app in town that could put a hurting on AT&T, Verizon and many other wireless carriers: Textfree from Pinger. As the name implies, the app allows the user to send free text messages using the iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch. There are no monthly fees to use Textfree--users must simply tolerate an ad banner placed at the bottom of the screen.

Textfree has been available for a while, originally priced at $5.99. However what makes Textfree stand out over other text-based apps is that it now provides the user with an actual phone number. This is especially handy for iPod Touch and iPad owners, as the user can hand out the number and have the messages sent directly to the devices--no email addresses needed. On the iPhone front, this could eliminate the need in paying monthly fees to AT&T for a similar texting service.

Can't tolerate the ad banner? Textfree offers a year of ad-free usage for $5.99, and an ad-free phone number for just $0.99. However with the ad-banner in place, users send and receive free and unlimited text messaging from the Apple devices to any US-based mobile phone. If someone actually calls the number, Textfree will alert users to a "missed call" and display the caller ID number.

According to CNET, Pinger began rolling out phone numbers to users two months ago, and has since handed out roughly 1.6 million numbers (which apparently is as many wireless numbers as AT&T gave out to net new subscribers in April, May, and June). Pinger is now reportedly dishing out around 630 million text messages per month, 70-percent of which are from iPod Touch devices and 30-percent from iPhones.

Pinger said that--according to a survey--about half of the Textfree iPhone users have reduced or discontinued their texting plan. AT&T declined to comment.