Apple Maps can now tell you which bus to take and when that bus will arrive.
Siri can now tell you which bus will get you across downtown Seattle the quickest during rush hour.
Apple Maps has added transit directions for Seattleites.
The company said it has added transit directions for iOS 9 users in Seattle. The addition accelerates the competition between Apple Maps and the popular Google Maps, which has long integrated transit directions.
Apple Maps now includes schedule and route information about bus, train and ferry routes throughout the city, and will show users exactly where bus-tunnel entrances are. The app can suggest transit options in its “directions” feature, so users can quickly compare whether busing or driving across the city will be fastest.
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For years after its debut, Apple Maps lagged behind Google’s option, even sending people to the wrong locations on occasion. But it has improved steadily over the past year, and transit directions are now enabled for a dozen U.S. cities and many more international cities.
King County residents have had another option to find transit information for several years. Many residents use OneBusAway, an app with transit route and schedule information that was developed at University of Washington by students Brian Ferris and Kari Watkins.
SoundTransit hosts regional data for OneBusAway, and the system overall is an open source database that other organizations can use.
Ferris went on to work at Google, and OneBusAway has since been expanded to several more citiesl including Atlanta and New York.