BuzzCity's SBS Transit web app hides the Safari wrapper.
Thanks to reader papadam, I've just found out about a web app version of Iris which was developed by BuzzCity.
For those who don't know, Iris is the service developed by SBS Transit to tell you when the next SBS bus will arrive at a bus stop. This web app, called SBS Transit, is a very nice implementation of Iris for the iPhone. Here's why:
1. You can find out when the next bus is arriving. Search by bus stop number or service number;
2. It tells you when the bus is leaving the interchange (helpful when you are at the interchange);
3. There is a journey planner to help you get from A to B via SBS bus;
4. You can save shortcuts so you can go quickly to your favourite bus service or bus stop;
5. It removes the Safari wrapper so there is no location bar at the top of the screen. This makes this web app look like a proper app.
The journey planner on SBS Transit giving directions for getting from Ghim Moh Road to Boon Lay Way.
How is this different from Next Bus? Next Bus has a simple interface and it only does one thing, but it does it really well. If you're at a bus stop and you want to know when all the services at that bus stop will arrive, Next Bus is for you because it consolidates all the arrival times onto one screen. In SBS Transit, you can only view the arrival times of each service one at a time.
SBS Transit has way more features and I appreciate both the journey planner as well as the effort to take advantage of the latest version of the iPhone's firmware to hide the Safari wrapper.
I've only used it briefly but even so, I'm impressed by how polished it is. And it is a darn sight better than SBS Transit's own web app version of mobile Iris (which I uncovered while researching this). Kudos to the good people of BuzzCity for putting in the effort to deliver a version optimised for the iPhone. I'm going to update my list of local iPhone apps to add this.
To use SBS Transit, click here in Safari. When you get to the site, push the '+' sign at the bottom of the screen and choose 'Add to Home Screen'. This puts a button on the home screen of your iPhone.
Related links
You can use SBS Transit to check the routes of SBS's different services. However, a much better implementation of the bus guide is SG Buses, which has integrated the bus guide with Google Maps. SG Buses is a free but ad-supported app that was developed by Muh Hon Cheng who was interviewed previously. A competing app is Singapore Bus Guide II (US$0.99 at the App Store) which was developed by Shen Weijia.
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