Can someone explain the "PIN" concept to me? Is this something that each Blackberry has? How do I find out mine? Why would I send to a PIN instead of e-mail or sms? Not sure why PINs exist and what advantage they offer over any other method of communication.

go to Options >Status to see your PIN. You can send messages from one pin to another, similar to an email. The PIN is mainly used to identify each BB on the network.

I agree with you on your confusion about PIN's, i think they are completely useless, ive been the corporate admin for my BES for almost 3 years and maybe did a PIN to PIN with someone 2 or 3 times.
Typically the only time I see it used is when im on the phone with the folks at RIM and they want to use it for testing.

Wirelessly posted (BlackBerry8100/4.2.0 Profile/MIDP-2.0 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 VendorID/100)

A pin message never sees an email box. Just blackberry to blackberry. like a private email.

If you're on a BES it's not necessarily private. The nice thing about PIN's is when there is any kind of email problem the pins usually still work. They even give you a delivery report (a small "D" aboe the check mark to let you know the message was deliered to the handheld.) Also, PIN's are used for BBMessenger. However, as the above BES admin stated they don't do much that emails don't do.

Not only that but you can "PIN" anyone on any network. no txt message fees or whatever. I have never used it really either.. just some added feature that I am surprised Verizon did not cripple.

Wirelessly posted (BlackBerry8100/4.2.0 Profile/MIDP-2.0 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 VendorID/100)

We need that "D" for delivered for all emails

That would be nice!

Wow idea!!

But I guess there has to be some technical limitation to implementing it. Unlike PIN which is a RIM-to-RIM system, emails are sent to across so many thousands of separate independent hosts! How can we confirm something like that? Not sure even the RFCs support it?

But that said, I will definitely love 'D' to any end !

J.

Delivery comfirmation is nice.

You can get a delivery confirmation email (if delivered to another BB) by typing <confirm> in the subject line of an email. So, it is possible.

True, but that type of confirmation is still handled by the BlackBerry infrastructure. For general email confirmations I beleive the best you can do is Read Receipts which, typically, require an action on the part of the person receiving the email.

To fully answer your question, the PIN is a unique number assigned to a specific BB device. Each device has its own unique number. Think of it as the device ID or the device's individual email address. This is how RIM determines where to route the email for that BIS/BES account. Communication via PIN to PIN is just an additional benefit of the RIM implementation.

If you buy a BB from ebay or from someone, you might get their email because their BIS account was not closed and RIM's servers don't know the device now belongs to someone else.

I think PIN messaging is awesome, and I think it is just one extra that puts Blackberries above those trashy Windows Mobile Devices.

There are any number of reasons to use PIN messaging. Blackberry Messenger actually uses the same infrastructure to deliver its messages so if you're using BBM you're using PIN messaging as well.

- PIN's are handy as a free* alternative to SMS (though you're limited to PIN'ing other BB's). There are many times when I want to send a short message and not have all these messages end up in my mailbox. I use PIN's all the time for this reason.

- PIN's are handy when email is down (it happens).

- PIN's are pretty much instantaneous where email delivery times can vary -- despite the instant delivery that people expect from email. Even if you don't use BBM you can pretty much carry a discussion in near-real time via PIN messaging.

- PIN's are more secure than email though if you're on a BES your BES admin can view them.

Now, whether any of these are useful to you specifically are up to you to determine. As you can see, there are plenty of people who never use PIN's.


* Well, included with a BB data plan anyway

Thats correct! In fact all data that BES sends to a BB is actually sent to a PIN. The BB Router and RIM NOC knows what career network this PIN is currently on, (for ex, in case of foreign roaming etc) and thus your BB gets its data. So yes, PIN is the underlying unique ID for communication between BB devices.

I think the 'R' is the best feature for Pin Messages. Plus, I don't think there is a way one can say, "Oh, I never received and read that Pin Message you sent"...

Think about 9/11 and my wife walking up the FDR and me in midtown. Email was totally bottlenecked. Huge delays. Phones all down. BUT PIN to PIN was instantaneous and I knew it was delivered and she was able to find me.

BLACKBERRY FOR LIFE.

This actually happened.

Wirelessly posted (BlackBerry8830/4.2.2 Profile/MIDP-2.0 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 VendorID/105)

Cool story.. That could be a commercial.

It's free instant text messaging to all your blackberry friends. I use it a ton everyday and can't live without it

Our company uses PIN message all day long. Fast and has delivery confirmation.