Help Free The Postcode (In the UK)

Unlike the USA, where you can easily get the latitude and longitude information for a Zip Code, in the UK the Post Office jealously guards that information ( and sells it to anyone who wants to use it). The last time I checked, the PAF (Postcode Address File) cost something like $5,000 a year to use it.

Given that it was UK tax payers who paid for the Post Office as it's an arm of the Government, a lot of people here think that UK tax payers should be able to use it without having to pay like in the USA, myself included. Even local councils have to pay for it. So several years ago, a campaign was started to obtain none copyrighted postcode <-> latitude, longitude values. The campaign has the support of the UK Guardian newspaper.

Now a Liverpool,UK developer John McKerrell has hid his first iPhone application published in the App Store (it's free) and it's iFreeThePostcode which lets UK residents submit their latitude and longitude + postcode to the campaign website. He has also published the source code and I've added it to the iPhone source code page.

• Link to Code Library for iPhone