Barack Obama Launches iPhone App

Barack Obama today realeased an iPhone Application. You might ask, "why would a political Candidate be creating software?" and the answer is because his marketing people and his technology people are absolute geniuses.

First off, being located in Canada, I was pleasantly surprised that I was able to download it from the Canadian iTunes store, as so many applications are limited to the US store when the shouldn't be.

The application has a few cool features, that are really simple ideas, but many are they smart.

1. it provides you a list of your contacts organized by state (this info is derived from their area code in your contacts list) and provides an easy interface from which you could call them, likely to promote Senator Obama and his ideas to them. Why list by state, so you can mobilize the grass roots in key battleground states. The application even keeps track of whether you have contacted your contacts or not, and tallys the total number of calls you have made.

2. Based on your GPS location you can receive the address and likely directions to your local Obama campaign Office.

3. You can sign up for email and SMS updates from the Obama campaign right from your iPhone.

4. See a list of press releases both locally and nationally to help you learn about the candidate and his positions.

5. See a list of local events again based on your GPS location.

6. Watch video or see photos of Barack and his supporters live on your iPhone. A really cool feature which aggregates content in one place.

7. See a list of issues and Obama's stance on them, organized by various categories such as civil rights, education, ethics, faith and numerous others.

8. And my favorite feature is a ticker at the bottom of the screen, which counts down the number of days until the election.

I think that this application should be open-sourced so that every candidate should be able to provide this type of application easily for any election around the world. In fact an application provided by a non-partisan organization (if such a thing exists) providing this level of info and functionality for all candidates in any election would allow the public to be more informed of the candidates and the issues, and would serve the public good no matter who you support!