

Say Hello to Transit - kevingibbon
http://thetransitapp.com/

======
Terretta
This app has some interesting ideas, but fails at the core task of navigating
to a destination when it tries to be too clever about the address.

Say I'm in SW Connecticut, trying to go to our datacenter in NYC, at 111 8th
Ave.

For all variations on 111 8th Ave, New York, NY, 111 Eighth Ave, Manhattan, NY
(and all combinations thereof), this app suggests bizarre alternatives in
Brooklyn, San Francisco, or what look like misspellings from Foursquare like
"8th Ave Parkimg Garage" (sic).

Unless one can enter an address and go to it, no other feature or UI element
matters.

~~~
samvermette
I agree this needs to be improved. The problem is with Apple's geocoder, which
seems to be really dumb at finding addresses. We would like to use Google
Geocoding Service instead, but they don't allow it if we don't display the
results on a Google Map (and starting with iOS 6, the map tiles are now
provided by Apple).

~~~
Terretta
Apple's geocoder gets "111 8th Ave, Manhattan" and "111 8th Ave, Manhattan,
NY" right.

In New York, Apple and others often show streets off of Manhattan island
unless you call the island locations Manhattan. That's because for the other
addresses, they have to accept users looking for them using New York as the
city too.

Navigon, Tom Tom, Garmin, Google Maps, and Apple all exhibit that issue. But
doesn't seem to be the issue here. Issue here seems to be results from
Foursquare instead of an address lookup, with no valid address ("what I
typed") option to select to continue.

~~~
samvermette
Thanks for the technical precisions re: address geocoding in NYC.

Right now, tapping the return key will try finding an exact match of what you
entered on Foursquare. If it fails, it will fall back to the geocoder and then
proceed immediately with the routing request. This will be improved in 1.2.1
as the return key will now be labeled "Search" instead of "Route" and will no
longer trigger the direction request.

Indeed the foursquare suggestions make address lookup confusing, as the
Foursquare suggestions sometimes make no sense with what the user entered. I
thought of maybe leaving them out when the search text starts with a number,
but then that would leave out venues that start with numbers as well.

~~~
Aqua_Geek
I'm genuinely curious as to why you're using Foursquare first and geocoding as
a fallback.

------
pwthornton
The app looks interesting with a unique UI. It is certainly hitting at the
right time for iOS, and considering that the transit directions in the old
Google-powered iOS Maps app were never very good, this has the ability to give
users an even better experience.

The supported cities seem strange to me, however. In the US, the first two
cities you would develop transit directions for would be New York City and
Washington, DC, as they are No. 1 and No. 2 in train/subway use in the country
and having by far the best transit. After that you would do the second tier of
Chicago, Boston and San Francisco. Then you'd look into less transit-friendly
cities.

Houston, which is pretty much a giant suburb, is a strange pick to go before
more transit dense cities. I do see that the app makers want data in a public
GTFS feed. But users won't know what that is. It's up to app and service
makers to work with cities, not users. They just want something that works.

I say all of this, because the goal of any app launch should be to maximize
user uptake and publicity. Skipping major transit cities like DC and Seattle
for launch and instead including Houston, San Diego, etc. seems like a wasted
opportunity. Shooting up the iOS most popular charts is the best path to
success on iOS and city selection, and thus user availability, would be pretty
critical here.

~~~
samvermette
All excellent points. You're right we should have put more thoughts into our
city roadmap. We basically looked up US city metro populations and went with
that (how terrible, I know). With all the traffic and feedback we get now, it
has become clearer which cities should have been prioritized (Miami and San
Diego for instance were an absurd waste of time and resources). DC is
definitely coming this week, followed shortly by Seattle and LA.

------
cmwelsh
The submission title, 'Best IOS 6 transit app is "The transit app" from
creator of SVProgressHUD', is too sensational for a Hacker News title. Check
out the guidelines: <http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html>

I really like the screenshots but this app doesn't support Phoenix yet. I
guess our local government doesn't provide the necessary public data feed?

~~~
89a
Couldn't ever be considered the best, it's US only

~~~
endersshadow
Last I checked, Montreal, Calgary, Quebec City, Toronto, Saskatoon, Winnipeg,
Vancouver, Ottawa, and Halifax were not in the US.

It is, however, limited to North America currently.

------
christiangenco
As a general tip for app websites: please prominently show on your website the
app logo I'm looking for in the app store when I search for "transit" - with
no knowledge of what combination of words in your url make up your actual app
name. I searched for "Transit" and had hunt through several transit-y apps
before matching up your screenshots (I'm on iOS 5).

The "Available on the App Store" button is nice, but if I'm reading this on my
laptop I'm not going to go to your website so I can click the button.

------
DigitalSea
"Transit also integrates closely with the new Maps in iOS 6." - I would
seriously reconsider telling people that and go with a Google Maps solution.
I'm not trying to be rude, this is seriously one of the best and most useful
applications ever, but the integration of iOS 6 maps is going to be your
downfall. My initial testing of the app showed some serious flaws with Apple's
geocoder not correctly picking up on variations of address and location names.

~~~
cloudwalking
Agree that it should be using Google's geocoder. Disagree that it shouldn't be
advertised as integrating closely with iOS 6 Maps--this app wants to position
itself as a viable replacement for Maps.app's missing transit data.

~~~
JCB_K
Maps.app allows external apps to integrate with it to provide transit data.

~~~
DigitalSea
But the integrated Maps application is inferior in every way possible compared
to Google Maps. I guess though, what's the alternative at the moment?

------
palderson
Firstly congrats on putting the app out there. It's great to see you've
actually paid attention to your web presence, which is neglected by so many
app developers. With that said, there are a lot of PT routing apps out there
and I think you'd be a prime candidate to utilize your web presence to truly
demonstrate how the app works by using Kickfolio - <http://kickfolio.com>

------
karanlyons
That's a fascinating pricing model. It makes a great deal of sense, too, since
presumably there's work to be done keeping all that data fresh and up to date.
But I wonder how many other transit apps we're going to see with a
subscription model, when users are so used to ridiculously cheap, one time
purchases?

~~~
samvermette
Indeed, we're getting ridiculous amounts of bad reviews re: our pricing model.
People were used to getting transit direction for free in iOS 5, so there's a
lot of angry people out there. Some people suggest we should get VC money and
make the app free, but what we (@gcamp and I) really want is to make the best
transit app out there and not have to care about an exit strategy or pleasing
greedy angels.

~~~
fpgeek
In my personal opinion, if you're not thinking about an exit strategy, you
should be.

In the bigger picture, Apple's top two smartphone competitors build transit
directions into their mapping solutions. Apple can't afford to leave transit
the exclusive domain of third-party developers indefinitely. To use Joel's
phrase you're "picking up nickels in from of a steamroller". You should expect
to get Sherlocked eventually.

~~~
Firehed
Not everything has to be a startup with some grandiose exit strategy. Making a
great product and a solid living off of it is perfectly viable, and quite
preferable for many people.

But you're right about being aware of what apple may do in the future. I'm not
convinced they'll add public transit (back) into their core mapping app
though, as you imply. I think apple has made the decision to optimize for
drivers, which tends to be the majority especially outside of huge cities.

------
sangaya
Looks interesting, especially the pricing model (which makes sense to me), but
are there plans for Android?

------
ericts8
Great looking app, but some of the directions just don't make sense or are
flat out wrong. For example, in NYC it tells me to take the 4 train from 23rd
St. - the 4 train actually doesn't stop at 23rd St.

Again, thumbs up but could use some improvements especially on the routing
side.

------
cayblood
Unrelated to the app, the typography on the app intro page badly needs some
pixel-fitting.

<http://dcurt.is/pixel-fitting>

~~~
samvermette
Not sure what's you're referring to here. Maybe it's your local rendering
engine... Screenshot please?

------
joejohnson
Everything about this App looks great except for the pricing model. Why can't
I just buy it? I have to pay for a subscription if I want to use all of the
features?

~~~
samvermette
Servers and app maintenance has recurring fees. Taking public transportation
itself is based on a pay-per-use model. Why assume that paying 2.99$ for an
app entitles you to free lifetime updates and support? A lot of apps do it,
but more and more we hear that it is not a sustainable revenue model. It would
be a whole lot different if Apple allowed paid upgrades, but they don't.

~~~
alanctgardner2
The only issue I have with this is that, AFAIK, the city is offering you this
information for free. I can understand if you were paying a licensing fee to
have access to the location data, you'd want to cover that fee. But wrapping
up a stream of data someone else produces and curates doesn't justify a
recurring fee to me.

~~~
samvermette
You'd be surprised at how ugly the data we get provided is. The "curating" is
actually much of the work we do. We probably spent as much time developing
internal tools that clean and improve that data that on the app itself.

Server costs and continued development also are recurring expenses. Like I
said, we might have gone down a different path if Apple allowed paid upgrades,
but they don't.

------
_pius
This app is gorgeous, but I found the UX to be confusing for my common use
case of routing a trip (from the IOS6 Maps app).

------
philwelch
A little off-topic, but: how does Montreal have _19_ different transit
agencies!?

~~~
samvermette
Yeah, like Jarek said. A bunch of very small agencies in cities close to
Montreal, but not far/big enough to give them a "dedicated" city
page/bundle...

~~~
jarek
I'm still curious about the inclusion of GRT under Toronto. I realize the
region isn't that large but that's not an intuitive classification for locals
- unless they go off exploring and check the agencies listed under Toronto,
they might think it's not supported.

~~~
samvermette
I agree. It's also a problem for Victoria and Kelowna in BC, which are both
listed under Vancouver. We need to find a way to better communicate this
information in the near future. Maybe something like a search or use the
browser's geolocating services to tell you whether your area is supported or
not.

~~~
jarek
Wow, I totally didn't realize Victoria and Kelowna were actually supported
from reading the Vancouver list. (I live in Vancouver now.) I know the BC
Transit thing is a pain in the ass from naming perspective, but yeah, get that
reworked when you have the time.

------
Void_
This is sort of thing people want to own, not subscribe to, IMO. So please,
let us know how does the subscription pricing work out.

Also, good job with the simple graphic design of the website, it really works!

~~~
3JPLW
As someone who has looked into building something like this, a subscription
makes a lot of sense. These GTFS feeds are (generally) a huge mess. Cleaning
them up into a dataformat you can use is tons of work. And with all the cities
changing their routes (or cutting service) every six months, it means
continued work and support.

I'd happily pay a subscription for something that works well. But yes, it will
be interesting to see how naive consumers react to this.

------
sdm
A little local focused, but do you have plans to include real time information
in Vancouver, like NextBus does?

I'm avoiding upgrading to iOS6 until I know there is a usable transit option.

------
ksesong
When I am clicking on any thumbnail from the _Supported Cities_ section, a
lightbox appears, but I cannot close it.

------
blaines
I like the interface but I'm getting bad directions, also its choosing
destinations poorly. (Chicago)

------
ryanpers
weird city support, austin before seattle... I guess perhaps the data is of
different ease to consume, but I'm pretty sure Seattle is a substantially more
transit using city than Austin. (Having lived in Seattle).

Perhaps just canadian myopia? (as a fellow canuk)

~~~
samvermette
Haha, yeah probably canadian myopia. I think it's because we had a couple
requests for Austin a while ago so we decided to do it. But with all the
requests we're getting now, it's much more clear which cities need to be added
next (Seattle, Washington DC, L.A., Portland).

~~~
panda_person
Austin is hipster central-its where all the young RoR and JS devs go to do
startups during SXSW. Don't know what that has to do with transit, and I'm
pretty sure Seattle has more transit than Austin. Oh well, that's the problem
with crowdsourcing.

------
benguild
Agreed. I downloaded this and found it to be quite exceptional. Apple should
hire this guy.

