Description
SeattleBus provides real-time arrival and departure times for bus stops across the greater Seattle Metro area. SeattleBus allows you to keep favorite stops for quick access, search through all of Seattle Metro's tracked bus stops, and can even help you locate the nearest stop using iPhone OS Core Location.
If you ride Seattle Metro transit on a regular basis, this application is for you. In short, SeattleBus is intended to answer the question: "Where is the *!&^!*# bus?"
What's New in Version 1.2.0
New in version 1.2.0:
* Recreated the parser to work with the King County provided data source for real-time transit data (from http://mybus.org/metrokc/avl.jsp to http://trackerloc.kingcounty.gov/avl.jsp.
New in version 1.1.1:
* Fixed an upgrade bug that would randomize your favorites when you upgraded from version 1.0 to 1.1. If you're upgrading to 1.1.1 from 1.0, this will work correctly. If you've already moved to 1.1, then it won't fix the favorites, but also won't mess them up again.
New in version 1.1:
* The individual bus stop pages will have a refresh button to get updated information about that stop. (previously, you had to navigate back to a list view and then to the stop again)
* The color coding of the wait times has been simplified and nailed down. Green means there’s an expectation that the bus is on schedule, and red means it’s delayed.
* Express routes are now shown! An "X" is now appended to the route number for express routes.
* We added nearly 100 stops that had been missing from an earlier version of the application, and the associated code to handle seamless database updates (for this and any future updates).
* I fixed a number of time related bugs that specifically occur around midnight and the not-quite-correct output that the web service provides. Seattle Bus will now function correctly in different time zones, and should handle most of the cases when looking up stops around midnight.
Known issues: There are still some issues with calculating wait times when you're looking at runs that are running late just after midnight.
Customer Reviews
excellent for Seattle bus commuters
While it is not so different from a book-markable web page, this program is valuable to those of us who commute by bus in Seattle, or know what bus we are trying to catch. It transforms the web page into a compact iPhone format, and turns how much the bus is late into the more useful number, how long until it arrives.
I now can find out with one or two clicks how fast I need to get to the bus stop. If the bus is not there, I can now find out how long until it arrives, i.e., how late is it running. No need to call my wife in puzzlement to see whether I missed it or not.
I'll probably use this app twice a day, and would pay twice the price for it, although it is surprising such a specialized app is available. As a previous reviewer stated, please make the favorites the start page, and save us one click most of the time. Better still, make a chosen bus stop the default, with a button for the second favorite, as I'll probably want the same two pieces of information every day.
[edit - Now that I've used it a week, I've upped the rating to 5 stars. There's room for improvement, my previous suggestions plus separation based on which way the bus is going would also be helpful, for example, but it's the app I use the most out of the ten+ that I have, and it delivers. No more sweating out the last leg walking to bus, with the 2-5% chance of only watching it zoom away. Sometimes knowing the bus isn't coming for 20 minutes, and I can get a coffee walking to the bus stop. Very nice.
No one wants to turn on the wireless and have to bring up a whole set of web pages when one can just fire up this app.]
It's a handy app
I live south of Seattle and this means I can't depend on the bus to arrive according to the posted times or according to Metro's site. So it's very handy to know when it's really going to arrive, especially when I have to have someone pick me up at the stop (I've got a broken ankle). Very handy if the bus also has wireless.
By the way, I have to say this: I'm ticked off at the constant complaint of some very selfish, stingy people who say pretty much every single app should be free. Many of these programmers are freelancers who are trying to make it on their own, and are making the equivalent of fast food wages. Demanding free apps is like having your boss demand you work for free. You try living on a nonexistant paycheck for a while and see how that feels.
No, I'm not a programmer, but I've seen enough who have given away so much of their work in the hopes that someone will fork over some bucks to pay, that they've had to give up the dream of programming what they love...because of some skinflint who can afford an expensive iPod but won't pay dirt for software.
Yeah, I'm willing to pay the 10 bucks because these guys have to feed their kids, too.
Great application for Seattle bus riders
I use this application at least twice every weekday, and usually more frequently than that. If you ever find yourself standing at the bus stop wondering when the bus will show up, here's your answer. It's faster, more convenient, and easier to navigate on the iPhone than the MyBus.org web pages.
Twice now the "find nearest bus stop" has been a huge time saver for me. It's great for not only finding nearby bus stops, but quickly locating the stop you're at if it's not already in your favorites.
- $4.99
- Category: Travel
- Updated: Mar 07, 2009
- Current Version: 1.2.0
- 0.2 MB
- Language: English
- Seller: Joseph Heck
- © Deallus Software, 2008
Requirements: Compatible with iPhone and iPod touch. Requires iPhone OS 2.2.1 or later.
