It’s not Apple Maps, it’s not Google Maps or even Yahoo Japan Maps. The #1 Japanese Transit iPhone app is Yahoo Japan’s stand-alone Transit app and Yahoo Japan is going to town with a big fun marketing blitz featuring Doraemon.
After one year of using Apple Maps Japan Transit since the September 2016 debut, I don’t find it very useful. None of the map apps are very useful for public transit. The problem is they all treat public transit like car navigation: here is point a, here is point b, here is a map route. Transit route map overlays might look cool but are not helpful and waste space that could be used for real information. Both Apple Maps and Google Maps force you to dig for more information instead of just showing it.
Map apps basically assume I don’t know how to get to my destination. On the other hand stand-alone transit apps like Yahoo Japan Transit assume you that you know how to get to your destination and just want to find the best way of getting there. It simply offers the best transit options in a handy sortable list: transit time, price, number of transfers. You can save routes, put them in a calendar, set time alarms, GPS destination alarms and more.
And to top it off, if you really need to see how to get from the station to the destination, Yahoo Japan Transit offers you a quick pop up map which is all that you ever really need saving you a needless trip to the map app.
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