If you are saying to yourself, “Why is this Jason Shah dude in this story too? Didn’t we just read about Groupick?” Yes, yes you did. He’s a busy guy. Flyover Geeks likes busy people that are making people’s lives easier. Read on. In the opinion of yours truly, Chicago needs to say, “THANKS JASON!” for creating the Chicago Transit Tracker app for Android devices. The app comes in two flavors, Lite and Pro. Lite is free and Pro goes for $2.99, well worth the hassle it will save you. if you ride the CTA as much as I do, you probably know the CTA offers an application online at their website. The problem I personally ran into using it as often as I do is that I constantly have to do a new search to find whatever bus I am waiting on but with Chicago Transit Tracker those days are over. CTT allows you to program frequent routes you use into it and save them. Take the #8 Halsted southbound everyday from the blue line at Grand & Milwaukee? Save that bad boy in the app and next time one tap is all it takes to pull up the bus info. The Chicago Transit Tracker is an excellent example of a great UI making something as mundane as tracking your bus suddenly appealing and useful all at once. Now I can time my rides better and not waste time standing around a stop for 15 minutes because I was a minute late to catch the one before. The Pro version gives added functionality that the free Lite version lacks. In Pro, you can look at a map and see exactly where your bus is as you mentally try to force it to move faster. You can also search for routes on the CTA nearby to you in Pro to determine the best one for you. In the Lite version you are only given one choice. Shah says that after going live in April 2009, Chicago Transit Tracker Lite has been downloaded approximately 50,000 times so far with about 5% converting to the Pro version. For these reasons, Chicago says, “Thanks Jason!” Chicago Transit Tracker can be found in the Android Marketplace. Do a search for “jsdf” and it will come up.
