Don't Miss the Bus

I love utility, things that have a simple purpose and work right. That is why one of my favorite iPhone apps is PDX Bus. This app gives you schedules for all the buses, MAX and streetcar lines in Portland. So if you are standing at a bus stop thinking, "I wonder when the bus is coming?" all you have to do is punch in the stop number and up pops a schedule of all the upcoming buses. If you take the bus to work everyday, you can bookmark your stop and see how long you have to make it from the house to the bus stop. Three minutes and I need to run, 10 minutes and I'll find something to do around the house for a few more minutes. The great thing is that it is linked to the real-time bus computers, so you can physically track the bus and see where it is on the map, get info about detours, etc. This is a great example of the making the Internet work for regular people. For years a lot of smart people have know there is a ton of info out there, but we have not had an elegant way to grab it and deliver it to people in a usable way. Now anything that has a schedule can be delivered to your iPhone real time.