Have you ever had a problem with your AT&T service on your iPhone and wished that there was a simple way to tell AT&T about the problem? Yesterday, AT&T released its fifth iPhone app, an app called Mark the Spot that allows you to alert AT&T to a problem.
When you launch the app, the app determines your current location, based on the assumption that you are in the spot that is having the problem. However, if you want to tell AT&T about a problem that happened in a different location, just tap the Map button and find the location where the incident occurred. A red X will stay in the middle of the screen, and as you scroll around a map the marker will tell you the latitude and longitude and address of that location. Incidentally, this free app is probably the easiest way to quickly determine the latitude and longitude and/or address of a location, so if that function is useful to you consider downloading Mark the Spot for this reason alone.
Next, indicate the type of problem that you had at that location, selecting from choices such as "dropped call" or "no coverage." Finally, indicate whether the problem happens once, seldom, often or always. If you want, you can tap the Additional Info button to bring up a field where you can type a message to provide more information on your problem.
When you are finished with your report, tap Submit. The app then provides your information to AT&T. I'm not exactly sure how it does that if you happen to be in an area that has no AT&T coverage to begin with. I can't imagine that the app is allowed to run in the background to send the report after your AT&T coverage returns. Perhaps the app sends a text message that gets queued until you have service again, but there is certainly no record of that left on the iPhone. Regardless of how it is that AT&T gets your report, AT&T sends you a free text message within an hour of getting the report to acknowledge receipt.
Because this app was just released, it is too soon to say how much the app helps AT&T to improve coverage. Nevertheless, it is encouraging to hear AT&T say that it will "utilize this feedback to optimize and enhance the network. Problems will be clustered to highlight areas for investigation." Note that AT&T says that "multiple submissions at the same time for the same issue by the same user do not receive higher weighting."
Click here to get AT&T Mark the Spot (free): 
