Sundial Telecom, a vendor of hosted telecommunications services, has announced the launch of Call Recorder, an app to record calls from iPhones. The app has received more than 370 downloads in the first week.

The app is free to download and users are charged to use the service per minute tariff.

It’s a relatively simple three-step process, the vendors say: “First callers are requested to provide an e-mail address for the recording to be sent to. Secondly, they enter the telephone number they wish to call. Sundial Telecom’s software verifies that the number is valid and calculates the price, which is displayed to users before they make the call. When they press the ‘Start Recording’ button, there is a short delay while the iPhone (News - Alert) makes the call.”

Users are then given a unique PIN, entered automatically by the system before the call is made. “This same PIN can also be used for other hosted call recording services provided by Sundial Telecom,” company officials say. Then at the end of the call the recording is sent to the user by email as an MP3 file.

The app appears to be aimed at corporate organizations, such as customer help desks or financial organizations, which record certain types of calls for training purposes, as company officials say, or which keep a record of what was said in the event of a dispute. Of course it is the callers’ responsibility to ensure that, where appropriate, they make called parties aware that the call is being recorded.

Shane Carter of Sundial Telecom says the possibilities for its use are “endless -- it can be used for telephone interviews, as evidence in disputes. It can even be used to compliment citizen journalism-type services. Since launching, we’ve received positive feedback from our customers.”

The Call Recorder app is an extension of the company’s hosted call recording service that has been offered since 2005. No account needs to be created and no specialist equipment is needed.