The Political GPS iPhone app ($1.99) should be a required app for any iPhone or iPod Touch user of voting age, but since that’s not possible, here’s why you should consider dropping $2 on the reference iPhone app. Ideal for anyone who wants to keep up with the activities on Capitol Hill (and a must-have for any political journos or pundits out there) Political GPS synthesizes a vast amount of important information and makes it easily accessible in one place.
Political GPS offers a tracker for all the members of Congress. You can browse via state or search by zip code to see who represents your district. When looking at a particular member of Congress, you’ll be able to access their Web site, contact information such as Twitter or phone number, see how often they stick to party lines and examine their recent voting history. If you start tracking a senator or representative, they’ll appear in your “currently tracking” list for quicker access. My only minor gripe with Political GPS is that the Twitter feeds of members of Congress don’t open in-line, but rather launch in Safari instead.
All of the legislative bills from the past six years can be keyword searched, accessed via a Congress member’s profile, or browsed by session or recent activity. Within a bill, users will be able to see how Congress voted, read either a summary of the bill or read the bill in its entirety, access the bill’s history and see who is sponsoring it. The iPhone app really has everything you could want to know about what’s being currently discussed in the U.S. government.
Political GPS also offers a 30-question test to determine where you stand politically, be it a liberal or a conservative.
