Bike-On is a turn-by-turn GPS app for cyclists. Unfortunately, like a bike lane that dumps you in the middle of a busy intersection, it is half finished. And to continue the metaphor, you’re probably better off just using a car GPS app.
I tried the app on both an iPhone 5 and an iPad mini (non cellular, non-GPS) and it won’t work on either. Which is a shame, as it really is easy to use.
To get directions, you fire up the app, and the origin is pre-populated with your current location. You can search, or you can tap a pop-up for a shortcut to searches for nearby bike shops, “food” establishments and bus stops. I’m not sure why you-d need a bus unless you’ve got a flat and aren’t carrying a patch kit or a spare tube, but there we go. If you’re feeling lazy it’s there for you.
The trouble is that when I hit the “Route” button, the progress spinner spins for a half-second and then stops. That’s it. It continues after force-quitting the app, and the same thing happens on both devices I tested it on.
All of which means that I can’t check out to see if there are any bike-specific routes which take bike lanes into account.
So I’ll just stick to Apple’s Maps and Google Maps. At least I know I’ll be riding with cars. After all, how can you trust an app’s bike directions to get you safely around a busy intersection if you can’t even trust it to actually work properly in the first place?
Source: App Store
