Review my app: For you NYC Hackers/Subway Riders | Hacker News Reader

Review my app: For you NYC Hackers/Subway Riders

exitstrategynyc.com

100 pointsbdotdub59 comments

Hi HN! My buddy and I just released an app in the App Store for all you NYC Subway hackers.

If you like saving a few seconds to a few minutes on your subway rides, take a peek at our app :)

We figured some of you here in NYC love little hacks to save time so we thought we'd share and here your thoughts. I always love the discussion here on HN so I'd love to hear some feedback if you have any!

I used to live in NYC, and I have sent this to all of my NYC friends. Awesome app!

For those of you who thinks this is stupid... trust me, New Yorkers value every second of their commute. And exiting from the wrong end of the exit could mean 5+ more min just to get out of the subway... considering the hundreds of people exiting the subway at the same time.

Great job, great idea, great execution!

Wow thanks for the great words :)

The second paragraph really nails it. Thanks for summing it up so concisely!

How did you map all the stops? Some poor guy rode a train to every single stop, that must have been fun.

My partner and his sister ran around the city for 10 weeks checking and rechecking! http://exitstrategynyc.com/story.html

This looks great. I only wish you had a Java or PocketPC version. Unfortunately I'm bound to my HTC Fuze due to tethering needs (Windows Mobile 6.1 has a ridiculously easy workaround to bypass additional charges), but would really like this app.

you should host the video on a separate account, no need for users to see the "trip to vermont" and "bill the lobster" videos

definitely. we were unexpected forced to launch (because of some press) so we were scrambling all over the place to get the website together :)

Just saw your app mentioned on the NYC NBC4 local morning news - so congrats!

I live in Atlanta, where the subway system is much simpler (and shittier), but this is exactly how I think when standing on the platform.

In short, the app is awesome.

Feature addition: Running ticker for total time saved, both for the current user and all users overall. Make it as accurate or "imaginary" as you want. ;)

Ooh, good idea ;) Thanks for the tip!

This is fantastic! I sent this to some other friends here in NYC who have all had the same response: "I always thought that would make a great app."

It hits the iPhone sweet spot of being a perfect blend of mostly fun and somewhat useful.

Edit I just purchased the app. Really nice and slick. Though living off the G (a cross-town line), it's hard to choose from only Uptown and Downtown options. Otherwise, this is great.

In Tokyo (and maybe other cities), this data is displayed in all the train and metro stations. Also, there is data on which car to ride if you want to use the escalator or elevator when you get out.

I bought it, and I have to admit, I'm a little underwhelmed.

A basic subway map would have been useful.

For the extra points, a schedule would be wonderful.

I think the singular focus is great. It has one goal - saving you time by optimizing your car position.

If it saves me five minutes, it has already paid for itself.

FWIW, the Tokyo subway posts this data throughout the stations. I always wondered why they don't do this in the US.

Edit: here's the best picture I can find: http://www.flickr.com/photos/eloketh/320918361/sizes/l/

It's that blue sign in the background/center. I will try and find a better picture. But at least I know that I am not imagining this :)

I really like the video presentation. Short and sweet while being entertaining enough to watch.

yes, the video is good. but it's in flash, which means it can't be viewed on a real iphone.

It's nice how you released it for a lot of different platforms. Would you mind sharing the % of sales / platform once you have some sales?

Will do! I always enjoy "the numbers" type posts so I'd love to share when we gather a bit more data

I'd also be very interested in hearing about how easy/hard it was to develop for all of these platforms. Were you able to share any code or resources? How long did each one take? How easy/hard was the process of getting them on their respective markets?

It's exactly what I always do, especially for fastest transfers and being the first one on the stairs. Recently I have been taking the 6, L and G a lot, terra incognito where your app comes in fitting perfectly. Love it!

Edit: Installed it, very smooth operation, took less than 6 seconds to find a perfect exit strategy for L -> 6 train transfer. Nice!

Glad you like it! :) It's saved me a bunch of time already and I hope it does for you too

I only see one problem with this: During rush hour trains, choosing the optimal exit location is a good way to not get on the train, because people that take the same line every day know where to stand.

Maybe a "Overcrowding" mode that does the exact opposite and shows you where the least crowded cars are likely to be?

Nice. This is application equivalent of a comedian "saying what everyone is thinking". When I lived in Tokyo, I always tried to do these kinds of mental calculations on the train on unfamiliar lines (already 100% optimized by daily commute).

Yep, I've lived in both Manhattan and Tokyo, and one of my first thoughts is that Tokyo is the other market that needs this. Is the code portable enough to subcontract development of the Tokyo version to native Tokyo-ites? I'm sure there are several other metro regions that would love this, too.

But I'm sure you will have your hands full just keeping up with the NYC version, for now.

Posters containing this data are posted throughout the stations. You can also buy a book, if you want to know every station on every line.

Nice! You should add data for other subway systems too. Here are the exit locations for the TTC: http://www.ttcrider.ca/download.php

That's just nice… I've had the same strategy, and obviously I know the station exits of my commute perfectly… :)

But it makes it all the more annoying to go to some station I don't know, so I think it's just awesome!

But as it is right now, I won't buy it. Simply because I'm talking about the Parisian metro… So tell me, do you plan on supporting more subway systems in the future? How do you plan to gather the data? Tell me if I can be of any help.

Extending your idea to it's wildest reaches - could you make an app that used the GPS data and date/time of day to build a statistical model of the best street-level routes and optimum time of day between any given point in the city?

It would take a really long time to aggregate enough data to make it useful, but it would be pretty handy eventually.

I haven't bought it yet, but I probably will for my work Blackberry. A suggestion: mark where the elevators are for all the subways too. It would be useful for disabled people and also anyone carrying heavy items or bags. Hopefully you wrote down that information so you don't have to search all the stops again!

This is magnificent. I haven't tried it out yet, so I'm obviously jumping the gun—but that is exactly what I'm working through in my head every time I get on and off the subway. N -> L is an easy one. I'll let you know what I think but this is an app that's very much in line with my own obsessive concerns.

I love the idea. Had it myself, but please please don't tell anyone about it. Isn't it nice being the first one to the stairs? Let's keep the best exits to ourselves.

Downloaded the sample on my kindle. It would be nice to see an actual map, if only just one instead of a huge listing of all the stops.

Glad you like the idea! Hopefully we will get one in future versions. The MTA has some weird licensing for all of their trademarks so we'll have to work it out with them ;)

There is a similar app available for the London Underground at http://www.tubeexits.co.uk/

The data is pretty good (only found a single sub-optimal station so far), whilst the UI is fidgety at times but I'm sure it will improve.

Haha, that's great. Clever idea. Wish there was some kind of interface for those of us without smartphones who just want to look stuff up online, but that sort of defeats the point of having it as an app. Still, good idea.

Interesting idea - if I were you I'd figure out how to extend the software/engine behind this to support other cities before others become to copy the idea.

(and if you're already working on this, then kudos!)

I like the idea, although honestly not that useful for me given that the exits I care about I already know.

You've got a decent start on an offline subway map though -- I'd pay for a good one of those.

MTA.info offers a downloadable PDF. Also, if I recall correctly from my jailbroken iPhone days there was a very good offline NYC Subway Maps app.

awesome app - even though i dont live in nyc, i've visited nyc often & i can definitely see how useful it could be to a daily commuter.

ohh - and you get double brownie points for the name 'exitstrategy' - gels so well with what your app does..i bet nyt will come calling for a writeup soon - so stay prepped :)

isn't this the kind of thing that people who live in NY know just by virtue of riding the train everyday?

You get acclimated to your 1 or 2 regular lines and then when you go exploring, this would come in handy. But, even on your regular lines, if you go to an unfamiliar stop this would be handy (the A/C line has 18 possible stops on my commute - I use 3 of those regularly and many others infrequently enough that this would be useful). The other scenario is when you move or switch jobs, your subways lines may change so this gives you a head start on the learning curve.

Ideally yes, but most new yorkers only go on a few lines regularly. I've only been in the city for a month now, but going to lines that you've never gone to before gets a bit confusing.

1 month isn't much for a system with 468 stations.

Great demo video and music, fun to watch. A good example of how a demo should look.

love the video you guys put together. Im in SF so have little use for the app, but I really like the ingenuity and looks like you've done a really job of the pr side of things.

A very clever app. One of the best I've seen for iPhone :)

This is great! I only wish I had thought of it first :)

Something like this would also work for airports.

How? You don't get to pick which gate you arrive at.

wow, great idea. I was in NYC the other weekend and this would have been handy.

Awesome!

well. It certainly can "sHave minutes" from my trip... You may want to change that typo on your homepage

That's a colloquialism, not a typo.

3 questions: 1) wont this lead to everyone standing at the same positions?

2) isnt this useless at peak times ( exactly how often can you choose where to stand)

3)isn't this simple enough to build it yourself rather than pay someone else to do?

PS:i see that you and your sister are trying to build a business, rather than making an interesting project. If so, your site looks rather amateuristic

Hey Vincent, thanks for the questions.

1. If that becomes the case, we'll be rich ;)

2. Do you mean because you're running to catch a train? Usually I find myself pacing back and forth not knowing where to stand.

3. The data for this app is not publicly available so my partner and his sister had to run around the city to every station and mark down every exit and stairwell. The whole process of checking, rechecking, and confirming took them ~2 months

re: website. We hadn't planned on releasing this just yet but a major newspaper had a blog post that ran early this morning so we had to hack this together :) It'll get better in time!

1) Not nearly enough people will use this for this to be an issue.

2) You can choose the car you get on at all times but the very very peak times.

3) Only for routes I take often - need to be at 5th car of B train transfer to F/V to get off on 23rd. Need to be on 2nd car of B train to transfer to R to get off at Rector. I'm obsessive about optimizing things, so $2 certainly seems worth it for all my other trips.

As far as the site, I think the YouTube video should be more prominent, and should have more screentime for the app.

it doesn't look that amateurish. the only thing that can be called that is the Vimeo video, the rest looks professional enough.

Regarding your first point, people who ride to/from the same stations often already do this; this will give the wanderers a leg up.

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