Blip for iPhone

A safety map of your neighbourhood.

Blip is made by your neighbours. It shows you the streets and corners they have flagged: a broken light, a dark underpass, a place that never feels right. Check it before you walk somewhere new, and add what you notice so others know too. It needs no account, and nothing you report can be traced back to you.

Reporting a spot: six tags and an optional note.

The Blip map at night: soft glows over reported areas, each with a pill naming what people reported there.

The Blip map: soft glows over reported areas, each with a pill naming what people reported there.

The app

Local knowledge, on a map.

Blip gathers what the people of your neighbourhood have noticed on their streets and puts it on one map. Open it before you head out, see what others have marked along your way, and choose your route with that in mind. Every report comes from someone who was actually there.

01See what people have reported Areas your neighbours have reported glow on the map, with a label for what they reported. The brighter the glow, the more people have reported that spot recently. Tap one to see what they noticed.

Choosing tags and writing an optional note.

02Report a place Somewhere that does not feel right? Tap Report a spot, choose what is wrong, from poor lighting to harassment, and send. Add a note if you have details. Your words are never shown to anyone. They are combined with other notes into the short summary shown for that area.

An area with four reports and a breakdown of what people reported.

03Know what an area is like Open an area to see how many people have reported it in the last 30 days, what they reported, and the summary of their notes. Reports are grouped into stretches of street about a hundred metres long, so the map never points at a specific house.

One of your reports: say it is still a problem, or remove it.

04Update or remove your reports Your reports stay yours. Confirm that a problem is still there, or remove a report once it has been fixed. Reports fade from the map on their own after 30 days unless people keep confirming them.

Privacy

Nothing about you is collected.

There is no sign-up, so we never ask who you are. What we do not collect cannot be sold, leaked, or handed over.

0accounts or personal details

0trackers or ad identifiers

30days, then a report is deleted

100 mthe smallest area shown on the map

What a report contains: The area, the tags you chose, your note, and the time. Nothing else.
Where you are: Your location is checked once, roughly, to confirm you are near the place you are reporting. Then it is discarded. Blip never tracks you in the background.
What others see: How often an area has been reported and which tags people chose. Never your own words.
How spam is stopped: Apple confirms that your iPhone is a real device without telling us who you are. If one device spams the map, we can slow it down or block it. This is not your Apple Account and it is not your name.

Questions

Common questions

Why is nothing on the map green?

Because nobody reports a street where nothing happened. A blank area means nobody has reported it, not that it is safe. Colour only ever means people have reported something here.

Can somebody be reported?

No. Every tag describes a place or something that happened there, such as poor lighting, theft, or a bad footpath. There is no way to describe a person, and that is deliberate. Blip is about places, not people.

What happens to what I write?

Your note is never shown to anyone and no person reads it. It is combined with other notes from the same area to write a short automated summary. The note is deleted with your report after 30 days.

If there's no account, what stops abuse?

Apple confirms that each installation runs on a real iPhone, using a feature called App Attest. If one installation spams the map, it can be slowed down or blocked. This is not linked to your Apple Account and tells us nothing about you.

Does it work without giving location?

You can browse the map anywhere without sharing your location. Reporting needs it once, so that only people who are actually there can report a place.

Where can I get it?

Blip is coming to the App Store for iPhone. It is free and needs no account.

Before you rely on it

A note on what the map can tell you

Blip shows you what people have noticed, and most streets have never been reported. A quiet map is not a promise that a street is safe. It only means nobody has said anything yet. Use it the way you would use a neighbour's advice: helpful and honest, but never the final word. If you are in danger, call the emergency services. Across the EU, the number is 112.