PDX Bus is a free application that displays arrival times for public transport in Portland, Oregon.
This little application uses the Internet to quickly access TriMet's tracking data displaying arrival times perfectly formatted for the iPhone.
This was developed as a volunteer effort to provide a service for TriMet riders. The developer has no affiliation with TriMet.
Monday, February 9, 2009
Ready to download!
Wow - that was approved and ready to go in just 24 hours. Nice! I have also updated the pictures on in iTunes too. Enjoy!
I was very excited to see an update and the new features are great. However, there was one thing that I wanted to see and didn't. Of course, I never submitted any feedback telling you about it so I can't blame you for not including it.
The BIGGEST issue with the PDXBus UI is that in the list of buses the text for buses with long names get REALLY small and make it very hard to read. I find myself scrolling down the list multiple times before I find my bus.
This isn't a huge problem on my way to work because only one bus stops at my stop. On the way home, there are 6 buses and they run frequently. The 94 Sherwood Express and 44 dominate the list while the 54, 56, and 8 are dwarfed. I don't even care about the name anyway. All I need is the number and how many minutes until it will arrive. I mocked up an example here:
http://skylark64.com/pdxbus_mockup.png
There are all kinds of other things you could do to enhance but this is the basic idea.
I love the new feature that brings up the last stop automatically. That helps ALOT. I rely on PDXBus everyday and it is great. Keep up the great work.
Thanks for your feedback - I agree that the text gets too small. Your mock-up is cute! I'll work on this next...
I feel that having just the route number may not be sufficient for many riders as some routes have different destinations (e.g. MAX blue line sometimes finishes at Elmonica, the 19 has two alternative routes). However, there is another option - TriMet does provide a shorter description for each arrival - I will work on re-arranging the arrivals screen to use this shorter text, and larger minutes. This should not take too long, I hope!
6 comments:
I was very excited to see an update and the new features are great. However, there was one thing that I wanted to see and didn't. Of course, I never submitted any feedback telling you about it so I can't blame you for not including it.
The BIGGEST issue with the PDXBus UI is that in the list of buses the text for buses with long names get REALLY small and make it very hard to read. I find myself scrolling down the list multiple times before I find my bus.
This isn't a huge problem on my way to work because only one bus stops at my stop. On the way home, there are 6 buses and they run frequently. The 94 Sherwood Express and 44 dominate the list while the 54, 56, and 8 are dwarfed. I don't even care about the name anyway. All I need is the number and how many minutes until it will arrive. I mocked up an example here:
http://skylark64.com/pdxbus_mockup.png
There are all kinds of other things you could do to enhance but this is the basic idea.
I love the new feature that brings up the last stop automatically. That helps ALOT. I rely on PDXBus everyday and it is great. Keep up the great work.
Thanks for your feedback - I agree that the text gets too small. Your mock-up is cute! I'll work on this next...
I feel that having just the route number may not be sufficient for many riders as some routes have different destinations (e.g. MAX blue line sometimes finishes at Elmonica, the 19 has two alternative routes). However, there is another option - TriMet does provide a shorter description for each arrival - I will work on re-arranging the arrivals screen to use this shorter text, and larger minutes. This should not take too long, I hope!
I love this application, hate the icon. Any chance this can change?
I know it's nit picky, but the aesthetically conscious people (like myself) like slick icons on our phones.
Changes based on this feedback are now in the store:
For mwelch - icon fixed
For David - I have improved the arrival screen - now the font sizes should be much more consistent.
Very nice app! Found a small bug (I think). Deleting bookmarks from the homepage works fine ... until you delete the last one ...Crash?
Ronald
Oh dear - yes, you are right - removing the last one does cause a problem. I'm surprised - that is something I usually test. I will look into it.
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