Adding a secondary line to an iPhone. Bloomberg Boot Camp, a report on today's technology. A company called FreedomVOICE is launching a service it calls Newber....that lets you add a second number...for business, say.....to an iPhone....and also lets you redirect calls to and from other phone lines...at home or at work. It is an iPhone application that kind of works like a handheld switchboard. Inventor Chris Nikkel ...
"You can place a call from the iPhone, and it presents a separate phone number from your cell phone. So you can keep your cell phone number private. In addition, it uses the location based technology inside the phone. It keeps track of phone numbers and where they're located. So when you're at your office, you can automatically transfer calls from your iPhone to your office phone and back. And you can even do that while you're on the call. So what this means is...you're at work, it's five o'clock, you're ready to get out of there...but you're on the phone with a really important client. You can, with the touch of one button, take that call that you're currently on and take it off your business line and bring it to your cell phone. Drive home, when you get home, you're out of battery, you can take that same call and transfer it, with one button click, back to your home phone line."
The service is currently being tested in beta. The plan is to charge five dollars a month and 2 cents a minute for the service. It is in development for other smartphones as well. You can find more information at www.mynewber.com . Bloomberg Boot Camp, I'm Fred Fishkin.