When the MTA unveiled Subway Time on Friday, the app faced criticism as it was made available only for Apple’s iOS platform. But along with Subway Time came a public release of the data stream, and less a day after the MTA’s own unveiling, a private developer had released Subway Time for Android. The app, a little buggy but definitely usable, is available here at Google’s Play store.
The Journal caught up with app designer Elad Katz who spoke about the quick creation of an Android version. “By the time we were at the cab,” Katz, who was on the way back from vacation, said, “we had decided that we’re going to do some reverse engineering and replicate the app on Android.” As the MTA’s app is, in Katz’s words, “basically a website that’s being displayed on the phone,” he said it was “easy to port over” to Android. And thus, the second real-time tracking app is born with many more to come.
4 comments
I picked it up over the weekend. It works fine on my end.
I just got it yesterday. It’s very nice and works perfectly.
How long until Google takes the data stream that was opened up and puts it into Maps?
OK, wow, this is REALLY bad. First time I tried to open it it immediately crashed. Then I got it open but I can only see the northernmost five stations on each line. And if I change the orientation of my phone, it kicks me back to the homepage rather than realigning.
On the stations I can access, it won’t scroll. So I can see three and a half uptown trains but only one downtown train. But hey, at least the data’s (sort of) there!
So yeah, waiting for a better clone…