Finally, after four generations of the iPhone, Apple have released their long awaited Chat App.
"This is a revolutionary app for the iPhone," said App World editor Buck Mackintosh. "Although the iPhone is a marvellous piece of technology that lets people stay connected through social apps, find their way through mapping apps, pretend to drink beer, fart and burp through fun apps, there is one thing that's been missing. Apple have finally addressed this. It does have a few technical issues at the moment, such as not being completely understandable when there is a lot of noise around you."
The Chat App will be made available to all versions of the iPhone, the iPad and iPods with 3G connectivity. All of which are basically the same piece of kit, but put in different sized cases.
Starting the app provides the user with a list of contacts to select from or a numeric keypad for entering a unique eleven digit number allocated to each Chat App user.
Where the other Chat App user is unavailable, the app comes with a recording facility so that a message can be composed and left for the other person.
"It's like texting," said Mackintosh. "Only you talk. I suppose a better example would be the video chat mode, but without the video. Thinking about it like this, I've changed my mind about the Chat App. I can't really see the point in it. I'd recommend the face to face app or texting if there's not available. Even if the next version promises the ability to contact non-iPhone users. I don't do that either. I mean, what would I have to say to them?"
