The first sentence of USA Interactive’s press release is quite pretentious. It goes like this:
The entire U.S. government — and its history — have just gone mobile.
With that sentence they are announcing two iPhone apps: iUSA and iAmerica, which reportedly provide users with access to everything from their local government to the White House, allowing them [users] to research, connect, and get involved in public service.
First comes the paid app – iUSA (costs $4.99), which indexes every government resource and makes it all easily accessible, and which is touted as “The Pocket Guide to the United States of America – Her History, People and Government.” However, it’s not just a guide, as the app is also designed to educate and promote participation in all levels of government by putting the most current public policy information at citizens’ fingertips. For that purpse, USA Interactive culled from a variety of public sources — including the Library of Congress, the White House, USA.gov, Wikipedia and the National Archives. In addition, the application also allows users to write to the President and lawmakers directly from their iPhones.
As for iAmerica, it’s the companion free iPhone app which is made as a subset of iUSA providing the history of the U.S. through its Presidency, only…