At the behest of @redeyechicago, I tested Chicago Rapid Transit by Presselite from the App Store. It boasts an impressive list of features for a scant half-megabyte, several of which are not available in other CTA rail applications. However, not everything is peaches and cream, as it lacks fit and finish in many respects.

In general, the application is small and quick, loading in a reasonable 3 seconds and the map displaying only a single second later. I paid an “introductory” price of only $0.99, which – based on application notes – will increase to $4.99. iTrans CTA also started out at 5 bucks, but has since dropped to only a single greenback. Is CRT worthy of a higher price?

Map

Chicago Rapid Transit includes an official CTA map, which is more geographically accurate than other maps and highly familiar to any Chicagoan; but this seems to have drawbacks. My guess is that the map is stored rastorized rather than in vector, limiting the ability to zoom farther in. I would like the ability to zoom in farther specifically for street names and more granular block numbers. In addition, the ability to zoom out all the way seems limited. I can’t think of a technical reason behind this, and it causes some navigation issues. For example, the Loop details would be more useful if I could see it in its entirety.

Why can't I see the whole inset at once?

Aside from zoom, the map is completely static – as in not interactive. You can’t click a station on map to access rail details. You can’t tap on “See Loop Detail” to actually see it. Instead, you must know that the Loop inset resides in the far left-middle, which you wouldn’t easily find because you can’t zoom all-the-way out to see entire map. The legend suffers a similar fate. All the symbols are explained in detail, but it’s hard to locate this information. That said, once you’re familiar with the icons, I’m glad to see the map includes handicap-accessible and parking symbols, but for some reason “under construction” symbol have been neglected. For example, Wellington is currently closed due to construction, but as a visitor, you would never know this. This is a major oversight.

An additional feature I’d like to see is tighter integration with bookmarks, by leaving them highlighted on the map.

Lines

Service advisories is pulled as a live list directly from transitchicago.com, which is nice, but being able to sync from the Rail Alerts RSS Feed (with last updated timestamp) would be even better for underground access. Additionally, having feeds grouped by rail line and color-coded would make things easier to browse. This could be implemented with a grouping and heading by color, or a simple vertical line to the left of the alert. Technically-speaking, this may be a bit harder to accomplish, since the alerts are not marked in any particular way to indicate which rail.

Aside from this functionality, the Lines tab seems pretty useless; it’s merely a searchable list of each train route. Why can’t I click for details, including scheduled stops like iTrans CTA implements?

Stations

Stations tab is also questionably useful. It contains a searchable list of stations, sorted alphabetically, but drilling down from the station reveals the same list of non-clickable lines. However, from this Line sub-list, you can use it in several other ways. For example, “On the map” will display it on the built-in map, highlighted in red. This is fairly useful, except when you try to view anything between Belmont-Red and Grand-Red, partly because of the size of the highlight and partly because of the color. Both need strong evaluation.

The highlighted station is difficult to see

Additionally, the “On the map” view is not zoomable, and if I tried to, the map would often jump the the upper-right, presumably trying to scroll when detecting my pointer finger after my thumb has lifted.

Another option is the “On Google Map”, which is also quite nice, however, it simply centers on the location in the Maps app. It would make it even better if a pin were dropped, so the user can get a street view or directions with one tap.

Lastly, the “Route to” should actually named “Route from”, as selecting this option sets the current station as the origin in the Route tab, prompting you to select a destination. The visual cues for this are also lacking. I think it would be more consistent if the Route tab was highlighted, as if you entered it directly, like below.

Route "To" Selection

Instead, “Stations” remains highlighted. More details on the Routes shortly.

Locate

The Locate tab serves a single purpose in two different ways. Initially, it displays the closes rail station to your current location. You can instead type in an address and find the closest station to that. My problem is that you are presented with a list capable of holding 7 items but are only given a single result back, presumably due to the localization setting. I tried to increase the value using a slide in the Settings, but it wasn’t immediately apparent that anything changed. The distance displayed above the slider shows the minimum and maximum values rather than current value; this was not obvious at first, and a current value would be much more appreciated.

Settings

There is no way to view historical searches, and once you’ve searched, I couldn’t figure out a way to find the closest station to your current location. An extra button or bookmarked value (similar to how the Maps app works) would be great. Of course, this presumes that the search even finds the address. For some reason, 435 N Michigan Ave revealed a “We could not locate any station” error message, but providing the zipcode (435 N Michigan Ave 60611) helps. Once a nearby station is located, you can drill down to the actual rail lines serviced by the station and view it in 3 different ways, just like in the [questionably useful] Stations tab.

Route

The route planner is actually a useful tool to those less familiar with all the L lines and stations. You are prompted for a “From” and “To” station, which are selected from a sorted, searchable list. Additionally, you can choose from your bookmarks, though the selection is a bit confusing, since the interface never reminds you that you’re viewing bookmarks rather than a filtered list. A simple highlight of the bookmarks button would suffice. Once the route has been selected, the application provides routing directions and an estimated travel time. Some of my comments still stand: you should be able to tap a rail/station and get the departure times. Additionally, this screen could use some compacting. For a simple route requiring a single transfer, the directions are too long to be displayed on the screen. A simple solution would be to move the directions into a definition/term layout. For example:

Route Directions: Current

Could be changed to:

Route Directions: Proposed

Another drawback is the lack of directional information. For example, “Loop-bound” or “Kimball-bound”. A feature I do like, however, is displaying the route on the map. instead of an overlay, each station is highlighted along the way, but it suffers from the same highlighting and lack of zooming problems notated in the Stations tab.

Overall

For 99 cents, CRT has potential, but will need lots of polish to command $5. There are a lot of good ideas that are poorly implemented. Some things unintuitive, others just plain missing. I have high hopes for this application, as iTrans CTA updates only trickle in, and largely without new functionality. This gives other applications a chance to move in, but they’ll need to outperform to steal the show.