Apps & The Customer

Malcolm Barclay, iPhone Developer & Consultant

Tube Deluxe

(59p)

Tube

Status(free)

London Bus

(59p)

NextBuses

(59p)

traveline s&e

(£1.79)

Downloads• NextBuses 65,000

• traveline s&e 2,400

• Tube Deluxe 310,000

• Tube Status 202,000

• London Bus 102,000

Some stats…• NextBuses serves 220,000 departure

enquiries per month.

• traveline s&e serves 5,000 journey plans

per month.

• Tube Deluxe gets used 1.1m times per month. 3m alerts sent each month.

• London Bus serves about 180,000 journey plans per month.

We’ve come a long way…

“The battery lifetime was 20 minutes, but that wasn't really a big problem because you couldn't hold that

phone up for that long.” – Martin Cooper

…we now have this

But users expect something like this…

“Doesn’t even show real time departures! I would’ve thought this would be a no brainer in London”

– User

Users…• have in insatiable appetite for real time

information.

• expect information (e.g journey plans) with little or no input effort on their part.

• expect any changes to be instantly available & updated.

• expect data to be correct.

• expect all of the above & more to be available on any device of their choosing.

The future is mobile, but it’s fragmented

• iPhone, iPad & iPod

• Android

• Nokia

• HP/Palm

• BlackBerry

Data is key

• Opening up data allows 3rd party developers to create services you could never afford to pay for.

• Transport companies, authorities & Government play a central role.

Where to from here?

• Mobile apps are popular & encourage the use of public transport. Even habit changing.

• Beyond journey planning, users expect real time information to be available across a range of mobile platforms.

Thanks :-)

web: mbarclay.net

email: malcolm@mbarclay.net