THE ASAHI SHIMBUN

Line Corp., owner and operator of the free call and messaging app Line, on Oct. 15 announced the global release of the app for iPads.
 
Line for iPad was designed as a sub-device for the smartphone version of the app, the company said.
 
Users can access their friends list and purchase stickers on their iPads by simply entering the e-mail address and password they have registered on their smartphones.
 
New accounts cannot be created using the iPad version of Line. In addition, the iPad app currently does not offer support for voice or video calls, making the messaging feature the only form of communication available for now, Line said.
 
Still, Line said it hopes the app for the globally expanding tablet market will increase its presence worldwide and widen its user base.
 
According to U.S.-based information technology advisory firm Gartner Inc., nearly 200 million tablets were shipped worldwide in 2013, and more than 70 million of those devices, or 36 percent, were Apple iPads.
 
The PC version of Line has been available since March 2012.
 
Supported devices for the new app are iPads with iOS 7 and above. Supported languages are Brazilian Portuguese, Chinese (simplified and traditional), English, French, German, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Malaysian, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Thai, Turkish and Vietnamese.