nxTrain
Today I am announcing a new app for iPhone and Apple Watch users called nxTrain. It’s designed to fill a gap specifically for people who commute by train in the UK on a regular basis. It allows you to configure your regular commute and then quickly see the next train, either from an Apple Watch complication, an iPhone widget, or by opening the app. That’s all it does. It’s that simple.
The specific problem I wanted to solve is this: when I’m on the Underground arriving at Waterloo station, I often have only a couple of minutes to find out when the next fastest train to Basingstoke is. Most existing apps assume you want to plan a complex journey or buy tickets. nxTrain assumes you already know where you are going, and just need to know which platform to run to. It will always show the next train based on its arrival time, not the departure time. So you don’t have to worry about inadvertently taking the slow stopping train. Background updating means there is also a good chance the platform information will already be there on your lock screen or watch face and you won’t have to struggle to find out on the underground with limited signal or at the station where signal can be saturated.
The app also lets you configure the times of day you usually leave for work and return home. This means widgets and complications can automatically show the next train in the appropriate direction based on the time of day. For hybrid workers, you can also configure the days you commute - so it won’t update on days when you don’t need it to, saving both battery life and bandwidth.
The app only supports direct train journeys, but for commutes with multiple legs it’s possible to set up multiple journeys, and even have a different widget setup for each. This can actually end up being more efficient than dedicated journey planner apps, which tend to assume people need longer to move between platforms than is often the case, especially if you do it regularly.
nxTrain is available in the App Store for less then at the price of a coffee.