Summon Auntie iPhone App

iPhone App Spots Parking Meter Attendants in Singapore

by Willis Weeon August 18, 2011in Start-ups

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A "summon auntie" in action. Credit: Halbert Lim, Flickr

Here’s a very creative and practical iPhone app from Singapore that will come in handy for motorists around town. It’s called ‘Summon Auntie‘ and it relies on help from the community to spot and alert others about officers who are giving parking fines in the vicinity.

Summon Auntie is a Singlish phrase that describes meter attendants, usually middle-aged women, who give parking fines to cars that are illegally parked. The app is pretty simple with three basic options:

• Park: This tells the app where you parked your car. It will track, record your location, and alert you if the Summon Auntie is on the prowl!
• Alert: You only hit this alert when you see a Summon Auntie at your vicinity.
• Kena: This will tell others that you have received a fine. Tsk tsk.

Just in case you’re wondering, “kena”, basically means “got it” or “got” in Singlish. But it is more often used in a negative context.

So how’s the app doing so far? Summon Auntie is getting an average of five stars on iTunes with over 50 reviews, a pretty good sign that the app is providing real value for many Singaporeans. What’s remarkable is that the application has only been available for just nine days, but has received lots of positive feedback during that short time.

Summon Auntie is developed by Replaid Pte Ltd, a web and mobile development studio based in Singapore which started operation in June 2011. Sanjay, the Business Development ‘Ninja’ at Replaid (who prefers to be called by his first name), told us that the company will be releasing more fun and innovative mobile apps in a couple of months time. He added:

Replaid started with the Yes!Fund Initiative and [we] have just launched our first in-house mobile app (Summon Auntie) on August 9th. Since then it had 478 downloads [within just] 4 days of launch!

For drivers who’d like to give it a try, you can get in here. Let us know if it saves you from any tickets!