This is NYPD's official crime-fighting phone

That's right, the New York Police Department has finally -- finally! -- caught up with the modern age and equipped its officers with smartphones, nearly a decade after the first iPhone came out. The department began handing out it first smartphones to the city's 36,000 police officers in April 2015 and finished equipping the entire force earlier this year. Now new officers at the New York City Police Academy in College Point, Queens, get phones along with their guns and badges.

Just as the advent of smarter phones brought improvements to regular folks' daily lives, these handsets have likewise made it easier for the city's finest to fight crime. Officers are able to respond to 911 calls faster, solve crimes more efficiently and create stronger ties to their community, according to NYPD.

Solving crimes

The NYPD has already seen tangible benefits of using the phones. In one case, a fare-beating passenger who ran out of a taxi likely would have gotten away if the responding officers didn't have their phones on them.

Instead, officers were able to use the database on their phones to figure out that the thief was hiding in his girlfriend's apartment building right next to where he had run off in Rockaway, Queens.

The thief had used the driver's phone to call his girlfriend before fleeing. Officers ran a search through the NYPD's system with the phone number and found her address through a criminal record.

Strengthening community ties

Among the apps and high-tech additions, the phone's most basic function -- calling -- is what has helped community relations the most.

At the time, it was against NYPD policy to give out personal contact information. Victims who wanted to reach the officers who took their report would have to call the precinct and leave a message, sometimes to voice mailboxes shared by entire squads.