In an attempt to earn support from iPhone users, the Democratic Party’s presidential nominee Barack Obama has launched, via his campaign, a new application for Apple’s smartphone. The app is aimed at rendering it easier for the gadget’s users to call family of friends in battleground states. And obviously at enticing them into encouraging the ones they call to vote for the candidate on November 4, 2008, when the presidential elections are scheduled to take place.

Introduced this Thursday, the “Call Friends” iPhone feature comes with a function that organizes the customer’s phonebook by purple (also called battleground or swing) states, which are the ones where none of the presidential candidates have overwhelming support. For this year’s elections, the swing states include Colorado, Florida, Ohio, New Mexico, Nevada, Montana, Minnessota and Pennsylvania.

Members of Obama’s campaign staff have stated that no contact information was to be stored by the application, the only piece of info to be uploaded being the number of outgoing calls, but anonymously. Other features of the app include access to Obama’s views and position on foreign policy or education-by a simple touch of the iPhone’s screen-, details on local events and also enabling users to donate money for the Democrat's campaign if they wish to do so. In addition, it offers callers talking points for them to use in order to persuade their friends to register and vote for Obama.

The “Call Friends” application was designed in less than three weeks by volunteers who believe in its potential to get the vote out for the presidential nominee and is presently deemed by political analysts as an important step towards advanced high-tech politicking methods.