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Agency rolls out Metro app

DIGITAL developers in the region have launched a new iPhone app for North East travellers.

Gateshead-based digital agency Never Odd or Even (NOE) and North East software developer Alex Reid have released Next Metro, which aims to make missing the last Metro home a thing of the past.

The app shows the user when their next train is due, for all 60 stations in the Tyne and Wear Metro network and also uses the location-aware features of the iPhone to tell a person the ten nearest stations to their location, and includes maps showing how to reach them.

It follows NOE’s Ask the HoffiPhone app, produced with TV star David Hasselhoff and launched last year, and its Instant Cities range of travel guides, the most recent of which is Instant Bosto

“We travel on the Metro on a daily basis, so we know there’s nothing more irritating than reaching the platform just as the train doors close,” said NOE founder Paul Smith.

“The first version of Next Metro was created by Alex, so he wouldn’t miss the train to work.

“We realised that tens of thousands of other passengers would find it useful for the same reasons, so together we created an essential iPhone app to help local commuters and visitors to Tyne and Wear.”

Meanwhile, there are also plans to release versions of Next Metro for Android mobile phones and BlackBerrys. Over 50 million iPhones have been sold worldwide since its launch in 2007. The latest iPhone - the iPhone 4 - will be launched in the UK this Thursday.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Ruth Mitchell .