The United States Postal Service has made its debut in Apple?s App Store in an effort to continue its 234-year tradition of serving every American community.

The new USPS Mobile application takes advantage of GPS capabilities, using the Locator function to show post offices, automated postal centers and collection boxes in closest proximity to the user. Maps and directions ? driving, walking or mass transit ? to the closest location are also provided.

?Our strategy here is to make our service more available to consumers whether they are at home, on the computer or out and about,? said Greg Frey, public relations representative at USPS, Washington.

?We also wanted to make sure that consumers have easy access to USPS services and this application is extremely user-friendly for that purpose,? he said.

USPS claims it is America's largest retailer, with 36,000 post offices and retail outlets in communities across the country. However, it continues to suffer from declining mail volumes.

Post-haste
The announcement of the USPS application for iPhone and iPod touch devices expands the Postal Service's effort to feed consumers? ever-growing need for information and services on-the-go.

USPS first went mobile through the launch of a device-optimized WAP site in October (see story).

Customer convenience and product access are the focus of expanding the most popular online services onto Web-enabled mobile devices.

Some of the most popular functions currently available on http://usps.com are now available on mobile devices: track and confirm, post office locator and ZIP code lookup.

Additional USPS applications for other Internet-enabled mobile devices are in development, Mr. Frey said.

The track and confirm feature provides a visual monitor of the progress of the mail pieces and requires only initial input of tracking code numbers so that follow-ups are only one click away.

Another innovative feature, the Postal Service application has a ZIP code lookup that provides the user with the code of the user's current location, using the phone's GPS capability.

?This application is our way of not only reaching out to existing customers and giving them easy access to USPS, but also to capture a new demographic that may not already be relying on USPS,? Mr. Frey said.

?We want to be available to consumers wherever they want, whenever they want and however they want,? he said.