CUPERTINO (California): Apple Inc.’s industry-leading iPhone devices will soon be able to do more than play music and run apps. Apple announced the development of an app that allows users to make phone calls, an ability that phones from Apple’s rivals already offer and that iPhone owners have long sought.
The changes, coming this summer to iPhones in the form of the app “iPhonePhone”, mean that users might be able to punch in a 10-digit code (aka “phone number”) and carry on a conversation with a friend in a different location, before starting a new task.
“We weren’t the first to this party, but we’re going to be the best,” Apple CEO Steve Jobs declared on Thursday, as bloggers, software developers and others in the audience greeted the news of “telecommunication” with applause.
The iPhone already permits multitasking, but the ability to conduct a conversation at a distance was only available through third-party applications. Apple had not given users ways to seamlessly “call a friend,” the way phones from rivals Palm Inc. and Google Inc. already do.
That will change with the release of iPhonePhone. Apple generally makes such apps available for free.
“It really changes the way you use the iPhone,” Jobs said. “You’re bouncing around the apps with tremendous fluidity, and now you can actually use it as a phone”