Boston Announces First iPhone App for City Complaints
Boston city officials will soon debut the cities first official iPhone application, which will allow residents to snap photos of neighborhood nuisances - nasty potholes, graffiti-stained walls, blown street lights - and e-mail them to City Hall to be fixed.
City officials say the application, dubbed Citizen Connect, is the first of its kind in the nation. It was designed as an extension of the city’s 24-hour complaint hotline for the younger set, making the filing of complaints quicker and easier for iPhone users.
The application, which will be free to download from Apple, will allow residents to use the global positioning system function on their iPhones to pinpoint the precise location of the problem for City Hall. After submitting a complaint, users will get a tracking number, so they can pester city officials if the problem persists.
In the past, residents have grumbled that their complaints disappeared into a bureaucratic black hole. Some said they had to call the city hotline repeatedly to get results. A new computer system Menino installed last fall has quickened response times.
The iPhone initiative is part of a push to make City Hall younger, hipper, and generally more user-friendly, a campaign that Menino has intensified during the mayor’s race.
The application was largely the brainchild of Nigel Jacob, a 36-year-old mayoral aide who totes a silver MacBook covered in bumper stickers and holds the exalted title senior adviser for emerging technology.
City officials say they expect to pay Connected Bits, the New Hampshire firm that designed the software, about $25,000 for technical support this year, and then review whether the cost is worth it.