The city government has started testing a beta version of a free smartphone app which can give alerts and warnings to citizens in case of natural disaster or other emergency.

The government told the Global Times Thursday that it hopes to launch the full version of the app, called "Beijing serves you," in the summer.

The app, which now includes information on weather and alert information from the Beijing Meteorological Bureau and the emergency office, will expand to include information from all major government departments, but so far is only for Android devices.

"During the July 21 rainstorm last year, we realized the traditional information delivery methods, such as radio or TV, couldn't reach people effectively and the time delay for text messages is too long," said Pan Feng, director of the e-government section of the Beijing Municipal Commission of Economy and Information Technology.

"It takes over 10 hours for a text message to reach all the 20 million cellphone users in Beijing, but technically our testing indicates this alert will only take 10 minutes to reach all subscribers," Pan said.

As the test version that has been released so far does not have much functionality, feedback has not been very positive.

"With this test app, I can only see weather forecasts and emergency alert information. I hope it will include more useful information about transport and public facilities," said Du Ying, 37.

Pan said the final version will include other services to make life easier for residents, such as paying taxes, adding that it will also be compatible with all cellphones and be available in English, French and Russian.