The topic du jour in the geek press is the iPhone, and I can confirm that it is indeed the bees’ knees. I found it interesting that two different online commentators saw fit to point out today that the iPhone is a great way to pass time on public transportation. First, here’s author Steven Johnson:
Here’s one I wouldn’t have predicted in advance: the iPhone makes me want to take a train somewhere. People who have above ground mass transit commutes are going to be psyched. Surfing, checking mail, listening to music, picking up a few calls — all without lugging out a big laptop, or switching back and forth between the Treo and the iPod.
Soon after I read that, I saw that one of Philip Greenspun’s friends summed up his iPhone review with:
If I were a train commuter, or a yuppie with a fast-paced
street life, I’d buy one tomorrow.
Why is this popping up in the zeitgeist? I think the iPhone is introducing many people to the joys of always-on mobile internet. For the past couple of years, my Hiptop/Sidekick has been making my transit trips (and waits in line) more pleasant, and the iPhone is head and shoulders above that device. And surfing the web or watching a TV show on your phone is much more fun than having to stare at the bumper in front of you in the daily traffic jam.
Not only is the mobile internet a good distraction—it’s also a great way to get transit information. For those of us that work on transit sites, the iPhone means more chances to help people when they’re out in the world. I tried out a couple of the transit sites that are dear to my heart on the iPhone’s Safari, and the results were decent:

Google Transit defaults to giving static HTML directions on the iPhone, which works OK. (Draggable web maps don’t really work on the iPhone, since dragging only pans the page.) Unrelated to the Google Transit web app, you can see (but not click on) rail station icons in the iPhone’s native Google Maps application:

buskarma also does fine:

An unexpected benefit here is that buskarma also makes it easy to get to the Pittsburgh Port Authority’s PDF maps, which look great on the iPhone’s PDF viewer (blame the slight blurriness on my photography rather than the Ginsu-sharp screen):

(To get to the PDF schedule and map for a route, just type the route number, say, 54c in the buskarma searchbox, then click printable schedule.)
These work OK, but there’s lots of room for improvement—I would love to see a transit application that’s as well-adapted for the iPhone as the OneTrip shopping list site is. Sure, the iPhone is an extreme niche market right now, so making an iPhone-specific site isn’t going to help the majority of transit riders—yet. However, I hope that the popularity of the iPhone ushers in an era where good mobile internet is commonplace in the U.S., and where more riders get good transit information where and when they need it.
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