iPhone Tube Apps

There’s a growing collection of applications that help you survive the London Underground.  Apps for everything from enhanced maps to APIs are being actively worked on, plugging the holes that Transport for London have left open for innovative developers.

There are currently over 20 Tube-related iPhone apps.  It could be that the iPhone’s large screen and geo-location features inspired this new wave of interest in travel-based software.  Note that some of the reviews on the store are needlessly harsh: a lot of people vote down to 1 star due to a lack of bus route support.  Seeing as we’re focusing purely on the Tube here I thought this criticism was irrelevant — it’s possible the reviewers are Palm refugees who had an older application with complete travel data.

Tube London City features a Tube map with zoom, route planner and journey instructions.  Like most apps it has a live information board that appears to be derived from TFL’s site.  Ironically any features that require the network won’t work in the Tube seeing as there’s no coverage down there.

Tube Boards shows live departure information.  It’s one of the newer apps in this area, but the reviews have been fairly strong.  It looks cool too.

TubeDeluxe is similar to Tube London City.  It features maps, service status and departures.  You can shake the iPhone to update the status screen which I thought was a cool idea.

Mini Buying Guide

There’s going to be dozens more Tube and Travel apps appearing in the near future.  Just remember to look for the following:

• Make sure the map isn’t a Google Map and will work offline.  It’s not always possible to see a complete underground map when on a train, so it’s useful to have one on your iPhone if you don’t have a paper map
• Look for departure board support
• Route planners probably aren’t essential, the Tube is relatively easy to navigate yourself
• However, a complete London travel solution requires a route planner to keep you sane
• Locator features won’t work very well if you’re actually underground and without network coverage (location can be derived from both GPS and IP address)