Sunday 17 June 2012

Métro for Android not in the Google Play Store yet, so sideload it


Back in my Symbian days I used a great app called Métro. This app looks up public transport connections and lets you choose between the fastest way or the least transfers route.

But when I jumped the sinking Symbian ship and moved to Android I couldn't take Métro with me. I forgot about it for a while, but then I accidentally landed on the Métro site and found an Android version waiting for me. Yay!

Métro lets you download subway, bus, tram, train, and ferry connections for hundreds of cities. All the big metropolises are covered, and many smaller towns are included too. Enter your starting point and destination and Métro calculates the best way to get there.

Downloading cities is a bit of a chore because you have to grab them one by one. Multiselect would be very welcome in a future update. On the bright side, once you have your favourite cities on your phone you can update them with a single "update all" button.

Métro doesn't show network maps yet. In the early days of the app that made sense, because storage and memory of Nokias and Blackberries and palms were quite limited back then. But now that SD cards have dozens of gigabytes waiting to be filled network maps would be a welcome addition.

If you don't know where the nearest station is, Métro can use your GPS or network location to find it for you. It takes street adresses as input too, but this requires an internet connection which may turn out expensive when you're roaming abroad. A share menu entry to send stops and stations to Google Maps would be a welcome addition too, and and and...

Anyway, maybe I'm asking for too much. If you want a quick offline way to find the best connection from one station to another, Métro does an excellent job.

Métro at metro.nanika.net (not in the Google Play Store yet)


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