Author Archives: matt

iPhone app feature tour: Route-planning

Over six days this week I’m introducing some of the features of our upcoming ExploreShanghai iPhone app! Today, route-planning.

With the help of the ExploreShanghai iPhone app, you can find the quickest and cheapest way to your destination. We gathered our route-planning data by checking timetables, and even visiting every station on the network 🙂

To plan a route, tap on the first station, and tap the “flag” icon to place a flag. Next, locate the second station (by dragging to pan the map, or searching), and tap the flag icon to place a second flag. The iPhone app will immediately show you the time required, including estimated interchange times, and the cost of a ticket. An animation will show the recommended path to take using orange highlights.

route

ExploreShanghai is now live in the App Store Download it today!

iPhone app feature tour: Station info

Over six days this week I’m introducing some of the features of our upcoming ExploreShanghai iPhone app! Today, station info. When you tap on a station in the ExploreShanghai iPhone app, you’ll see a bubble like this appear.

iphone 002

Its packed with useful information! First, the station name in English and Chinese. You can also see the different metro services at this station, color coded by line. For each line, you can see the first and last train in each direction. For example, at Hongkou Football Stadium, the first train on line 8 is at 5:50 (south towards Aerospace Museum) and 6:13 (north towards Shiguang Road). Now it’s simple to make sure you don’t miss the last train home!

There are two icons in the top right. The “play” button will play an audio clip of the station name in Mandarin. The “flag” icon will allow you to start planning a route. More on that tomorrow!

ExploreShanghai is now live in the App Store Download it today!

iPhone app feature tour: Pan and zoom

Over the next six days I’ll introduce some of the features of our upcoming ExploreShanghai iPhone app! Today: pan and zoom. One of the tricky things about using a map on a small screen like the iPhone is navigating around. This is only going to get harder as more lines are added in Shanghai in the run-up to Expo 2010!

In ExploreShanghai, we solved this by using the iPhone’s standard “pinch to zoom” controls. When you launch the app you’ll be zoomed out. To zoom in, place two fingers on the screen and spread them apart. The map will zoom in to show you the area around your fingers. You can pan around the map by dragging with a single finger. See the image below to see how it works.

zoom

ExploreShanghai is now live in the App Store Download it today!

Trains run longer on Shanghai Metro Line 3 and 4

Welcome back from the October break! Community member ‘aeiounm’ alerted me to updated timetables for Shanghai Metro line 3 and line 4, which came into effect on September 28th.

Thanks to two new trains, the time between services during rush-hour is now only 5 minutes (though you still may have to wait a long time off-peak).

First and last train times have also been changed (for the better, mainly!) Trains on Line 3 now run 30-40 minutes later. The last trains now depart at 22:30 and 22:35, arriving at the termini stations at 23:34 and 23:40. Line 4 has also received some love. The last trains now run about 15 minutes later, with the last Line 4 trains reaching Yishan Road at 23:30.

Continue reading →

Check which lines are open at a glance

Another late night at the office? Worried you’re going to miss the last train home? We’ve just pushed out an update to all our maps (Shanghai, Beijing, Guangzhou and Hong Kong) which lets you see at a glance which lines are still open.

Log on to ExploreShanghai at 10:33pm and you’ll see something like this: the greyed out stations are already closed, while the white stations still have train services.

Open and closed stations
Continue reading →