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Don't like iOS6's (lack of) transit directions? You need this.

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Re: Don't like iOS6's (lack of) transit directions? You need this.

#71

Post by CamperBob2 »

kelnos wrote: post #60
mtgx wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've never understood why people like to pre-order something before even one review on it is released, or before they get a chance to see it for themselves.

It's Apple. In the eyes of the faithful, they can't release a bad product. As much as we may make fun of "fanbois", it's incredible the amount of loyalty, trust, and goodwill Apple has managed to generate for themselves.

Well, there's that, and there's also the fact that it's historically been a good bet with the iPhone to order each new model sight-unseen. That's been the case going back to the very first one.

Not every new iPhone or iOS version was a win in every respect over its predecessor, but this is the first time Apple has royally hosed its customers.

Re: Don't like iOS6's (lack of) transit directions? You need this.

#72

Post by Void_ »

stcredzero wrote: post #70
Void_ wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it's open-source. In order to run it on your iPhone, you'll have to pay Apple $100 per year. Or find somebody who is already in Apple Developer program, ask him to add your iPhone ID.

Someone should start a "iDevBuddy" site, where people can pay a dev for use of her/his unused provisioning slots and install their own software.

I'm pretty sure Apple would consider that a violation of their rules.

Re: Don't like iOS6's (lack of) transit directions? You need this.

#73

Post by jarek »

malyk wrote: post #69
davidwhodge wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We've found that Google has historically had a very hard time in San Francisco, and many other big cities for that matter. The results often seem reasonable at first, but end up being impractical in practice. We've found that getting good routing results in cities like SF requires a lot of attention to detail in each particular city. Google has very smart people, but they can't focus everywhere at once. Disclaimer, I…

It shouldn't matter if they don't run on schedule because every bus/train has a GPS on it from which you can make predictions. iCommuteSF and Routesy (and i'm sure others) use this to give me results that are accurate the vast majority of the time.

There's no universally accepted API for the real-time data unlike the GTFS (General Transit Feed Specification) for theoretical schedules. You can approach some commonality with Nextbus API/scraping (http://www.nextbus.com/predictor/agencySelector.jsp) but not every agency offering real-time data uses it.

So iCommuteSF might very well be doable, but you can't use that everywhere like you can Google Maps with GTFS.

Re: Don't like iOS6's (lack of) transit directions? You need this.

#74

Post by MartinCron »

mtodd wrote: post #48
driverdan wrote: post #30

How about just sticking with iOS 5 until Apple fixes this? Is it really that important to upgrade to 6? (obviously doesn't apply to the new phone) The latest doesn't always mean the greatest.

Apple won't be fixing this. Their approach is to recommend transit apps depending on your location instead.

Which doesn't have to be a terrible idea. Explicitly encouraging transit app competition is great.

Now if only you could change the default handler for addresses to route to other mapping/direction programs. Once we get that, this teapot tempest will die out.

Re: Don't like iOS6's (lack of) transit directions? You need this.

#75

Post by jarek »

kelnos wrote: post #61
jarek wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unless specifically indicated as live times, Google uses the scheduled times. I've seen live times in Google Maps in only one area, Portland, OR. Scheduled times are coming from GTFS feeds that agencies register with Google. As far as I know, Google didn't create a unified live transit predictions/tracking API, which seems to me a rather surprising oversight.

It might be speed. I've written an app for SF using the NextBus API, and it is slow . In the time it would take to return the live times for a particular route at a particular stop, Google has already given me four possible routes (and has helpfully gotten me a glass of water, as well).

True. In my experiences scraping Vancouver's Translink, I can get a prediction in about a second or so, but not fully reliably.

On the other hand, if there's anyone that could speed up receiving, processing, and retrieving lots of rapidly changing data, it might be Google.

Re: Don't like iOS6's (lack of) transit directions? You need this.

#76

Post by thecosas »

davidwhodge wrote: post #28

Hey guys. David Hodge here from Embark. I just wanted to let you know that we've got you covered for transit directions in many large cities. (And more being added all the time) Look for Embark in NYC, Washington DC, Boston, London, Chicago, San Francisco. Embark will work underground and has results tailored to each city instead of the very general results you tend to get from Google Transit.

Any chance San Diego is on your radar? :o)

Re: Don't like iOS6's (lack of) transit directions? You need this.

#77

Post by malyk »

jarek wrote: post #73
malyk wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It shouldn't matter if they don't run on schedule because every bus/train has a GPS on it from which you can make predictions. iCommuteSF and Routesy (and i'm sure others) use this to give me results that are accurate the vast majority of the time.

There's no universally accepted API for the real-time data unlike the GTFS (General Transit Feed Specification) for theoretical schedules. You can approach some commonality with Nextbus API/scraping ( http://www.nextbus.com/predictor/agencySelector.jsp ) but not every agency offering real-time data uses it. So iCommuteSF might very well be doable, but you can't use that everywhere like you can Google Maps with GTFS.

I didn't mean to imply you could do it everywhere. I was specifically replying to the part about "MUNI" in the parent comment. The geo data for current MUNI positions is public data. So if you are making an SFMUNI specific app, there's no excuse not to use it.

Also, I didn't realize that embark also does routing, which is more than iCommuteSF and Routesy do.

Re: Don't like iOS6's (lack of) transit directions? You need this.

#78

Post by Terretta »

davidwhodge wrote: post #35
zbowling wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hi David, I love your apps. Long time iBart user, but what would be nice is a single app that will cover making connections across transit systems. If I'm going to the South Bay tell me how to take Muni to BART or CalTrain and then BART /Caltrain to VA and how far to walk. THAT would be the killer feature that would making having no transit directions awesome.

Hi zbowling, great to hear you like our apps! Thank you for the suggestion. We'll keep that in mind for the future.

I'm in Rome, and it's simply not possible to get from most points A to B with crossing transit modes and transit brands – most trips need two or three, sometimes four.

Try getting from Pz. Belli in Trastevere to Villa d'Este in Tivoli in time for the 8:30 PM light show. Then try to get back when the train isn't running. Both trips involve an area bus or train, as well as local metro, bus, and tram. The downtown map comes with four brands' routes.

In Rome even Google isn't grasping this, but same is true of NYC, getting into the city, or heading from Newark to Queens, or Stamford to JFK and LGA.

Re: Don't like iOS6's (lack of) transit directions? You need this.

#79

Post by mikeash »

dailyrorschach wrote: post #7
dailyrorschach wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So far for me yes. Interestingly enough since I live in DC - I never had transit directions in Google Maps anyway.

Or maybe it was just me or I gave up trying, they appear to be there now at least on the website, no transit layer to view, but directions do appear.

WMATA finally got their act together and opened their data to Google sometime in the last year or so. They refused to do so for the longest time because, as I recall, they didn't want to lose advertising revenue from wmata.com. Revenue which amounted to something like $50,000/year, out of a budget of hundreds of millions. Anyway, Google is pretty good at DC transit routing these days, at least in my experience.

Re: Don't like iOS6's (lack of) transit directions? You need this.

#80

Post by barista »

wes-exp wrote: post #55
DanHulton wrote: post #14

I'm probably just going to pin http://maps.google.com to my front page and be done with it, unless of course Google releases a full-blown app (oh please oh please).

I'm doing this and I also added the bing app which, although it's a bit clunky, seemingly has transit directions.

I was hoping that link to lead to a product page for Lumia 920.
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