NextBus

But recently it has been hit by a string of bugs that have garnished the user experience and made customers a little unfettered. I’ll show you why NextBus needs to ramp the gear more on this once great app.

Interface

I’m a big fan of the app’s design and how neatly laid out the entire app is. I love the dark contrast and the simple way of accessing the menu icons easily at the bottom. Under the More icon, there are Alerts, Settings, Help, Feedback, and others. The maps are darkly contrasted, and the location pins are easily traceable. I give the app a solid 10/10 for the well-thought-out and seamless design.

Key Features

With this app, the most important feature is finding ETAs for vehicles in the public transport system, namely buses, trams, light rail, etc. These vehicles have to be equipped with GPS to be contributing to the location service. The system is integrated with the different systems’ websites and shows real-time information from the public transport models themselves.

Using GPS, you may set locations for your favorite places and sites, customize them and save routes to those places. You can also set a scheduled pick or a destination, as well as voice-overs and text responses when you are setting up the new transit systems so that you ‘purportedly’ never miss a stop. If you don’t wish to get delayed, you can set up push notifications and local reminders which always provide alerts for ETAs, disruptions, and delays.

Other cool tools that you can use on NextBus include finding locations of the nearest transit points, detecting routes and directions to the nearest stops. Moreover, you may save your favorites. The app offers a whole host of other features but has lately been plagued by a variety of bugs that has left some users seething. The latest version of the app gives you a faster app navigation button at the bottom.

Android compatibility for NextBus varies with the device, while the iOS app requires at least version 8.0 and runs on iPhone, iPad and iPod touch. I’ll give it a 9/10 for the comprehensive but buggy features.

Usability

There are too many glitches on this app. It never gives the right ETAs. Even most GPS locations of transit stations are not entirely accurate. I used to be able to view my location history and add favorites of these transit points. Not anymore. I’ve actually uninstalled and reinstalled it a couple of times because of the frequent bugs. I’ll give it a 4/10 based on my experience with the app and the user reviews that I’ve come across.

Bottom Line

NextBus needs to work on its app development. Otherwise, it will lose users really fast. The ETA feature, which is the most important one, doesn’t work anymore. Most people might use this app because few reliable alternatives exist, but I personally wouldn’t recommend it.