My Bus Edinburgh for Android is an application for the Android platform of mobile devices. It allows the user to view when their next bus is due at a chosen bus stop in the city of Edinburgh, Scotland. It does this by retrieving the data from the My Bus Tracker website and presenting the data to the user in an easy to understand way. To help the user find their stop, the user can save a list of favourite bus stops and the application contains a Google Maps object where the user can select their bus stop from a marker on the map. The application is available free of change from the Android Market and the source code is freely available. Permission has been granted by The City of Edinburgh Council (Transport Department) for this application to use their data feed. An iPhone application is also available from another developer which boasts similar functionality.
Key Features
- Live bus stop times are retrieved straight from the My Bus Tracker website.
- Up to the next 4 departures are shown for each service at each bus stop.
- Bus stop codes, found on timetables at bus stops, can be typed in manually for live bus times.
- A list of favourite bus stops can be kept for quicker navigation later.
- Google Maps is fully integrated in to the application to allow the user to find their bus stop quickly. The application can even determine the user's location using location aware services for quick stop finding.
- Various preferences can be changed.
Latest Version: 0.0.3. What's new?
- The user can now backup and restore their favourite bus stops from the Preferences section of the application. This will save a copy of the favourites database to the SD card and when the user wishes to restore the database, this same file will be used.
- The user can now sort the bus services in order of time (with the first to arrive being the first in the list). The default ordering, in order of service name, can still be selected and will remain the default ordering. If the user wishes to order by time, they can enable it from the Preferences or in the menu when displaying bus times. Their selection will be remembered for subsequent views of departure times.
- The display of departure times has now been rewritten to reflect a cleaner way of displaying bus times. All bus services will be unexpanded but will show the service number, it's destination and the arrival time for the next bus in that service. If the user wishes to view subsequent departures, they can do so by expanding the list for that bus service.
- Fixed an issue which prevented the application being displayed in the Android Market by QVGA devices (HTC Tattoo, HTC Wildfire, ...). The application is now compiled for Android 2.1 rather than 1.5, and now contains QVGA compatible graphics to support lower resolution devices. At the same time, higher resolution images were added to support WVGA. Thanks to all who reported this issue. Sorry to all those who were not able to download the application before because of this.
Requirements
- The device must be running Android 1.5 or above (this is likely the case for most devices).
- The device must have a data connection (such as WiFi, 3G, etc...).
- Google Maps must be installed on the device (this ships with most devices).
- For accurate location finding, it is recommended the device has GPS functionality.
Download
It is preferable that this application is installed through the Android Market. Scan the QR code above to be taken straight to the application in the market or search for My Bus Edinburgh in the Market.
If you are having trouble installing the application through the Market and your device meets the requirements above then try downloading the application package straight to the device and installing manually - to do this "Unknown sources" needs to be ticked in Settings > Applications.
Contact
To contact the developer of the application, please send an e-mail to riverniall@gmail.comIf you need to contact the developer due to an issue with the application, please include your device make and model and the version of Android you are running in your e-mail.