V1.08.2 released to Apple

Version 1.08.2 of the Snitch has been released to Apple for approval.  Look for an update soon!
- E

Saving your work

Thank you for your kind iTunes App Store reviews.  Please keep them coming.  You'll see a number of improvements in the next version of PotholeSnitch.

One commenter suggested that tagged points do not persist if one exits the app before reporting them.  I have considered this issue.  Unfortunately, simple persistence may not be a satisfactory solution for all users.   If one drives some distance from the original tagged points, the old points' reports will be lumped together with new points, possibly in a different municipal authority area.   That may not be what you intended.  In any case, I'll try to address this issue in a future version of the Snitch.

In the meantime, here's a workaround:

1) Before exiting the Snitch, enter "Report!"
2) Edit the email by typing something - anything - in the message body. A space is sufficient.
3) Press the Cancel button.    
4) You will be prompted with a Save/Don't Save/Cancel dialogue.  Choose Save.

This approach will save your email in the drafts folder, and in essence, your points are saved.  You can enter your email account and forward the message from your drafts folder at a later time.  Note that when you cancel a message, your tagged points are not erased from the map when the email page is dismissed, so be aware that you may send duplicate reports.

I am reading your comments and am always open to enhancement requests.

Keep Snitching,

Elli

PotholeSnitch

Greetings! I'm the creator and developer of the PotholeSnitch iPhone Application, which I fondly call "The Snitch" for short. This blog's purpose is to help you find your way around the Snitch, and to permit you to comment on its usefulness, request improvements, report issues, and assist fellow users.

History of the Snitch

One morning during the brutal winter of 2006, I drove to my day job for a well-known telecommunications carrier in central New Jersey after a major snowstorm. I found my car bouncing around a highway that was in deep disrepair. I had a tool at my hand - a cell phone. I could make a call to the authorities to complain, but what would I tell the NJ State Police, anyway? There's a pothole somewhere between exit 32 and exit 33, roughly near milepost 47.3? It sure didn't seem to be very helpful.  

I realized that my cell phone had embedded GPS capabilities, but there was no way to expose and capture that information. I was driving, after all, so even if the phone reported my coordinates to me, I'd need pencil and paper to record them, not exactly something safe to do on the road.  What if I could just simply press a button whenever I hit a pothole and its location would be recorded? Then I could deliver the coordinates of several issues in one fell swoop via a single email message to my town's transportation department.

Enter the iPhone in 2007. Finally, a device existed that could not only determine its GPS coordinates, but could make them available to me. Next step, write a program to display the precise location of an issue graphically - a map would be nice! -  and make it simple to report to a third party.
And so the Snitch was born. After four months of prototyping, development, and testing, I placed the Snitch for sale in the iTunes App Store in November, 2009.

Thanks

Thank you for purchasing PotholeSnitch. I hope you find it useful and that you have as much fun using the Snitch as I had developing it.

-- Elli Barasch