Review: Congress (and the White House) in Your Pocket — The iPhone at Its Best
The Cohen Research Group has created an excellent series of apps that connect voters with their elected officials.
They’re the sort of apps that were made for the iPhone and, for the most part, they’re a joy to use.
Like all the apps in the series, the two apps reviewed here — Congress in Your Pocket and the White House in Your Pocket — are old fashioned paper directories on steroids. A growing list of related Cohen apps provide government information for individual states.
All versions of Congress In Your Pocket — there are three — include information such as the member of Congress’s first and last name, photo, title or leadership position, state, senior or junior designation in the Senate and District number in the house, political party affiliation, district map, and biographical information.
The apps also include office address, official website link, member contact form, and telephone number. The member’s Twitter, YouTube, and Facebook links are provided where available.
If that isn’t enough, all three versions provide incumbent campaign website and percent of the vote won, name of the top 2008 opponent and website, campaign news, tracking polls where available, and donor information.
Need more? All Congress In Your Pocket Plus and Pro versions include names and email address links to top staff including: chief of staff, legislative director, press secretary or communications director, and the scheduler. Staff salary information is also included for the congressional apps.
Plus and Pro versions also include full committee and subcommittee assignments with applicable chair and ranking member designations, sponsored and cosponsored legislation, earmarks, and overseas trips. There’s also news from Politico and President Obama’s cabinet (from the NY Times). Plus and Pro users get bookmarks and Pro users get specific tabs for committees and subcommittees.
The Pro version is updated year-round and provides more supplementary information than the Plus version.
The Presidential app in this family is similarly equipped as the Congressional apps with an abundance of information.
There’s data on over one hundred of President Obama’s top administration officials and their key deputies. The app lets you learn all about who leads and manages the most important executive branch departments, agencies, counsels, and offices.
You can also search for the bills you want to track and see how much the president raised for his 2008 campaign.
The application includes bookmarks you assign, a link to the THOMAS congressional bill information system, a special tab for new members of the administration, a direct link to the president’s OpenSecrets page, an iPhone-friendly news link to Politico, and more.
I found two shortcomings with the software. The Congressional Pro version provides you with updates on members of Congress throughout the year — but, crucially, it doesn’t tell you what information has been updated, just that the member’s record has been updated. Knowing specifically what the additions are would not only be useful, it’s what you’re paying for and should get.
Another problem, which seems confined to the White House app, is that it isn’t always clear what some links lead to — more information, a website, or a phone number? Several times I found myself calling the White House when I thought I was just getting additional information through the app. This could be solved simply by changing, for example, “Eric Lesser, Chief of Staff” (which dials the number for David Axelrod’s top man) to something like, “Eric Lesser, Chief of Staff (phone).”
These issues are far from deal-breakers. Apart from their usefulness as directories, these two apps contain so much interesting background information about the people and their roles in government, it’s like having a civics lesson in your pocket.
Congress in Your Pocket Basic
$0.99
Version 4.6
App Store link
Publisher’s website
Congress in Your Pocket Plus
$4.99
Version 4.6
App Store link
Publisher’s website
Congress in Your Pocket Pro
$29.99 Annually
Version 4.6
App Store link
Publisher’s website
White House in Your Pocket
Version 1.1
App Store link
Publisher’s website
Comments
Tell me what you're thinking...
and oh, if you want a pic to show with your comment, go get a gravatar!
