I want to know what kind of apps/programs y'all recommend to people or just use personally. This is just in general, could be anything from a game to a media codec. I personally use Linux but stuff for other operating systems is welcome too.
If you have a local transit agency that it works with, the Transit app is great. I wouldn’t feel nearly as comfortable taking the bus/subway without it; my city’s website is not great to try to navigate while changing plans on the fly. Transit will give you multiple options and show you on a map how to get there from where you are.
It also lets you gamify taking the bus by giving people a rank in exchange for providing location data while on the bus. I’m top 40 on my local line. 😎 And you can send other people a little generic thank you that makes hearts fly up on their screen if they’re providing location data for a bus on a line you’re viewing.
I haven’t extensively tried or used Citymapper (I just downloaded it to compare now), so this is going to just be initial impressions:
I’d say I prefer Transit just because it shows how far the bus is down the line from you, while that info doesn’t seem to be shown on Citymapper. I also don’t like that Citymapper doesn’t make the subway line names reflect the local transit line colors (ex: A line is blue, B line is red, etc) the way Transit will.
I do like that Citymapper has the subway map built in, but my city also has a bus map available that they didn’t include.
That said this is probably completely regional, go for whichever one works best for you.
I just gotta say Transit provided free permanent upgrades to people who rely on it and can't afford the subscription. This was before transit agencies started providing them to users.
Edit. As they had shifted to a premium service for some features.
My city has fully integrated the Transit app into our bus system, so you can also buy and scan your tickets within the app, including monthly passes and 10-use "punch cards". Just activate the QR code as you're boarding. It's awesome.