The BeTrains application for iPhone is now available.
The iRail team is very proud to announce the release of the BeTrains iPhone application. As you know, Android has had its BeTrains application for more than a year, with a lot of happy users even preferring it above the official NMBS Android version. Having experienced all this positive feedback from the users, we all felt the need to also make the app available for the iPhone-platform.
What is BeTrains?
BeTrains defines itself as “A handy mobile application for the belgian train users. It lets you plan your trips very quickly and makes it possible to share messages with other users for a happy travel.”
The iPhone application has two main features: Chat and Route planner.
The Chat gives the opportunity to the users to leave messages on any subject and attach it to a specific train or station. A picture and precise geolocalisation can be attached to each message. What the users will do with the Chat is up to them: announce an event on a train or station, tell what goes through their mind, share a funny picture … our only concern is for them to have fun!
The Route planner is a very straight-forward implementation of the iRail API. Users can quickly plan their train trip using the various inputs (station select, date/hour of departure/arrival). As new features are added to the iRail API, the iPhone application will progressively integrate them through periodic updates.
Overall, the application focuses on simplicity and efficiency. Be sure to get it and tell us what you think about it!
Here’s a quick history of the making of the application
About two months ago, Louis de Decker who met Christophe Versieux (developer of the Android version) joined the iRail team.
As Louis wanted to practice his young iPhone development skills on a useful application while using the iRail API, he saw a perfect opportunity in making the Betrains iPhone application. The objective for Louis was to follow the existing landmarks set by the Android application while adding a social feature called the “Chat”.
After only a month, a beta-version of the application was released. A two week testing-period then followed. The 10 beta-testers did a great job finding the last remaining bugs and made a lot of cool suggestions to improve the app. After polishing the app a last time, it was submitted and approved by Apple after only 10 days.
The iRail team was thrilled to see the immediate positive response from the first users of the application. After only 4 days of availability in the Appstore, BeTrains already made it in the top-50 of the free apps in belgium. A very promising start !
For more information about all the BeTrains applications, visit http://www.betrains.com
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