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Transit app makes public transportation a breeze [50 Essential iOS Apps #6]

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Transit for iPhone shows upcoming times
Transit shows nearby transportation options and upcoming arrival times.
Photo: Ian Fuchs/Cult of Mac

50 Essential iOS Apps: Transit Public transportation can be a nightmare. Traveling in an unfamiliar city or relying on trains and buses to get around can leave you feeling overwhelmed and frustrated.

Transit for iPhone makes finding train bus, and subway schedules simple. With support for more than 80 U.S. cities and dozens more around the world, it is one of the most useful apps for making the right choice of transportation.

Google Maps for iOS just made your commute easier

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Google Maps Feb 18 update
You can now gain one-tap access to useful commute info.
Photo: Google

Google today rolled out a new Maps update for iOS that makes accessing commute information easier than ever.

A new one-tap access bar at the bottom of the app lets you quickly view nearby restaurants and hotels, real-time traffic data, and transit information.

Apple Maps adds Transit directions for Sacramento

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Tower_Bridge_Sacramento_edit
Sacramento in all its glory!
Photo: Wikipedia CC

After Apple Maps got off to a rocky start, it is continuing its quest to become the go-to maps service on mobile by adding transit information for yet another city — meaning that the app will provide detailed information on transportation options ranging from buses to railway lines.

The latest city to get the Transit treatment? Sacramento, CA.

Boston and Sydney are the next two cities to get Apple Maps transit directions

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Find out when your Mac is looking at your location data.
Find out when your Mac is looking at your location data.
Photo: Apple

iOS 9 has continued to make Apple Maps better by introducing transit directions to the mix. Unfortunately, they’ve been relatively slow-to-roll out, with transit directions available in 11 cities. But yesterday, Apple quietly updated its site, indicating that transit directions for Boston, Massachusetts and Sydney, Australia are imminent.

HopStop shuts down after Apple sucks the life out of it

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iphone-transit
With Transit coming in iOS 9, HopStop doesn't need to exist anymore.
Photo: Apple

It looks like HopStop is doing the walk of shame back from Apple’s apartment. The city transit mapping service is shutting down as of this October. Apple acquired HopStop in 2013 and seems to have used up just about all of the data it wants for its own Maps app, so the folks in Cupertino have apparently moved on.

One Of The Best Transit Apps For iPhone Gets iOS 7 Makeover

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Screen Shot 2014-03-21 at 6.25.37 PM

The appropriately named Transit app for iPhone has already gotten a lot of love in the App Store, including Editor’s Choice, and it is getting featured again because of a major update that’s out today.

Transit is designed to provide you with realtime data on public bus and train systems in 62 metropolitan areas around the world.  Today’s update includes a more streamlined way of figuring out the right route to take, the ability to search locations using stop codes, a drastically improved offline mode, and more.

Here’s the full list of changes:

What Apple’s Massive 2013 Buying Spree Means For The Future [Year In Review]

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Apple may as well run Cupertino.
Apple may as well run Cupertino.
Photo: Benjamin Feenstra

It was widely reported in January that Apple was in talks to buy Waze, an Israeli startup with a hugely popular maps app. Waze was rumored to be asking Apple for $750 million. The same outlet that broke the acquisition rumor quickly backpedaled and said no such deal was taking place. Google ended up buying Waze in June for $1 billion.

And so goes the buyout game in Silicon Valley, a power play where tech giants like Apple and Google court hot startups with the hopes of adding them to their war chests.

Apple had its biggest year ever for acquisitions in 2013, with a record 15 smaller companies joining the fold. A dozen of them have now been publicly disclosed.

For an entity as secretive as Apple, examining the companies it buys is one of the only ways to peek into its future plans. When AuthenTec, a company that specialized in fingerprint readers and identification software, was purchased in July 2012, speculation immediately followed. What did Apple want with fingerprint sensors? The answer ended up being obvious, and the technology debuted in Touch ID in September 2013.

Often the outcome of an Apple acquisition isn’t so immediately apparent.

Historically, Apple acquires far fewer companies than its competitors. But the line is starting to blur. Google publicly bought three times as many companies as Apple in 2012 and not even twice as many in 2013. Apple bought more companies than Microsoft in 2013.

So what does all of this say about Apple’s future?