Apple patent points toward an iPhone chat application

Apple iPhone did not ship with an instant messaging client. An official client is still missing from the feature list.

However, things might change as the company seems to have gained a patent related to a similar application.

The patent application is titled Portable Electronic Device for Instant Messaging and it was published last month.

Apple did talk about an official AOL IM application for the iPhone while discussing the software development kit for the device.

The patent application stated:

The GUI has a set of messages exchanged between a user of the device and another person. The set of messages (is) displayed in a chronological order. In response to detecting a scrolling gesture comprising a substantially vertical movement of a user contact with the touch-screen display, the display of messages (is) scrolled in accordance with a direction of the scrolling gesture.

Checkout: Portable Electronic Device for Instant Messaging