Ever forget a christmas or birthday present and then find yourself scrambling to find ways to send it as fast as possible to a near friend or family? Both governmental and independent post/delivery companies do not not offer any decent services for such emergencies. Now, a small amount of people calling themselves ‘Postmates’ have started off with this idea of shipping goods easily and quickly within a city – and they’re making good use of the iPhone for it.
The project began a while ago in San Francisco. Just download the free iPhone app from iTunes, choose one of the 50 local retailers in the city, describe your item the courier has to pick up, set the destination and you’re done. The package is immediately on the way to the recipient. Within one or two hours, your loved one has his gift and you also get immediately notified of the successful delivery via mail or push notification. All items shipped via Postmates get insured for up to $150 and delivery is secured using digital signatures – on iPhones, of course. And while the delivery is on its way, you can even track the progress live via GPS and identify your courier via a photo within the delivery information.
The Postmates iPhone app is not just functional, but has got some nice pixels, too. Polished, warm and friendly, it is a pleasure to use the service and all of its cool, personal features. The Google Maps GPS tracking is integrated seamlessly and it meets a serious, but individual corporate identity like Postmates represents. So if you are a SF citizen, grab the app for free and try it out.