It's fantastic that they understand user experience, but they don't seem to understand that 95%+ of the world doesn't live in 8 specific cities. Google Maps might be an obnoxious app (it is!) but at least I can use it.
Unfortunately most city transport is covered by a different transit authority in every city, which will each offer vastly different levels of data access (or none at all). In London we have TfL which have only recently opened up a public API which covers all the transport options in the city, but it's very complex, and implementing that API alone into an app would be quite a task.
If you start looking at all of the UK, there are different APIs for trains and buses, and then various local services which have no API at all, so you'd have to manually input timetables.
Google probably have transit authorities begging them to include data on their transport into Maps, but for an independent app it's not that easy, and takes a lot of work.
> If you start looking at all of the UK, there are different APIs for trains and buses, and then various local services which have no API at all, so you'd have to manually input timetables.
I was wondering... could it be possible to not rely on any API, and deduct bus routes and timetables from crowdsourcing the locations of travelers? You'd need to sample the location quite often, but I think it should be possible to detect when someone is walking, and when someone is riding a bus. If a lot of people come from different locations, wait in the same spot, and they all start moving simultaneously much faster than walking, they are probably in a bus. It could also map out all the stops, although it might take some time for stops where people rarely get on or off. Should work for above-ground transportation, but perhaps metros block the GPS signal.
Scaling a useful real-time transit app across cities isn't simple. Google Maps, after 10 years, now has GTFS for pretty much anywhere, but real-time data hasn't converged to a standard yet. Not to mention many systems that do publish GTFS don't have or don't publish real-time.
And I totally understand all of that. But if your mapping data comes from Google Maps (which it seems to), and your normal map interaction design is superior (which it seems to be), then why not let everyone use the map features, and roll out things like real-time transit data to cities as you can?
"Our map works best in these cities and the experience isn't the same outside of them" is answered by "1 star, sucks, needs bus data in Ohio".
Mobile apps nowadays need a lot of good will to drive usage, so if any part of the experience is even slightly substandard your users will rake you over the coals.
So, completely reject any user for whom the experience isn't great - it's the rational move. Sadly, supporting your edge cases is harmful to your own health.
You could probably spin something about cheapening the brand with insufficiently awesome experience. Of course the actual reason is probably that they don't want the hosting or support overhead.
Cynically, if the app supported SF no one on HN would care about the rest of the world ;)
The reality is that 95% of the world can use the same generic car/road mapping tool, and Google Maps has that sewn up. A smart company would aim for the 5% of the world that Google Maps doesn't do a great job at.
Elaborate about which part—Google Maps app being obnoxious? The linked article makes a strong case for that—common actions are a number of slow steps, the information that people are actually looking for is missing or difficult to discern, etc. Or that I can use it? That's because I don't live in one of the 8 cities that Citymapper supports, whereas Google Maps works on, I dunno what % of the world, but I'm guessing it's pretty high.
Except it's really not designed for that. It's designed for people who know where they're going and how they're going to get there. I don't know, I get in my car, punch in an address, and GMaps does a pretty darn good job of finding a route. That's what 95% of us want.
The app supports 400 cities and adding a new one every other day. Our focus has been 1) crowd sourcing transit data 2) making real time arrivals available to users wherever a feed exists.
The startup that is working on the app you want, covering every city with any public transportation, is going to release sometime in 2036. Coming soon!
Living in a city with crappy public transportation, I really don't care about that—I'd just prefer a mapping application with a better user experience.
