iCaltrain: Caltrain Schedule for Mobile Phones and iPhone

I’ll be at iPhoneDevCamp in SF (August 1-3) getting feedback and hacking on the new releases.

iCaltrain has been tested to work on the new iPhone 3G and on iPhones updated to firmware 2.0. Thanks to everyone for their great suggestions, which will be incorporated into the next iCaltrain update — coming soon in both web-version and an native version through the app store.

Based on popular request, I’ve added a web clip bookmark icon for the iPhone (1.1.3+) and iPod Touch. Check it out by pressing ‘+‘ in Safari, and select ‘Add to Home Screen’.

Thanks to all who sent in ideas and even sample icon designs!

The new build of Safari in iPhone update 1.1.1 removed the support of the CSS style “box-sizing”, which caused the iCaltrain home screen to overflow the screen in portrait mode.  The solution was to replace “box-sizing” with “-webkit-box-sizing”. (Thanks to Chris B. for confirming the issue.)

Did you know that Atherton is serviced by Caltrain on weekends? I do now, thanks to John S., and I’ve added it to the list of stations.

Coming soon in 2008: real-time train delays arrival times using the “Real Time Train Predictive Arrival GPS System”. I’ll add these real-time updates to iCaltrain once it becomes available on 511.org.

[via Mercury News]

iCaltrain is now available for web-enabled cell phones at m.iCaltrain.com. The primary design goal was keeping it as lightweight as possible while supporting different screen sizes. Similar to the iPhone version (iCaltrain.com), it’s easy to access the return trip schedule.

• Python was used to parse the web schedules posted at Caltrain.com. The html tables weren’t identical and some tags were missing as well. Also, the times were in 12hr format without am/pm.
• iUI was used for the nice sliding effects and UI’s look and feel.
• PHP is used to dynamically generate the search form (to remember the last trip) and search results, and to redirect iPhone users to the app.

I’ve been commuting on Caltrain for the last few months, and have always wanted to look up the schedule on my cell phone. I finally got around to spend some time putting it together for the iPhone using the iUI. Simply point your iPhone to iCaltrain.com and you will see the app. Safari users can test drive it at iCaltrain.com/iphone.php.

iCaltrain Features:

• Easy access to reverse trip schedule for the return trip.
• Remembers the last search performed for those frequent trips.

Coming next:

• Mobile web version for those without the iPhone.
• Show only the next trains instead of the full schedule.