Firstly I would like to say I am a huge fan of the cycle hire scheme. Give it a go if you havent alreay, its extremely good value and a fun way to get around.
This is a nice looking app, it has well great images, and a well designed user interface. It has a journey planner and is full of useful information and links. The functionality is sound and even contains an augmented reality view (AR View).
The largest shortfall of this app is that it is not easy to see the status of the docking station (empty/full) without tapping the pins. This can be frustrating if you are trying to quickly find an empty dock.
Also, a large portion of the screen is taken up by user interface, this dons't sound too bad, but it is frustrating in the journey planner, when you are trying to view the route in a small window.
2) London Cycle by Fliplab (free)
This app is packed full of features. A notable advantage of the official app is the ability to get a feel for the status of the docking stations without tapping the annotations. Red for empty blue for full and the radius of the circle tells you how many docks there are. Its directions are optimised for cyclists using the excellent Cycle Streets API
On the down side there are adverts (these can be removed by paying). Also the interface isn't as nice and it takes a few too many taps to get to where you need to go. 90% of the time you just want to see the status of the nearest docking stations.
3) Yell for Bikes (free)
I have only included one screen shot here because that is all there is. This app dons't include several features including journey planners menus and pages of text, it gets straight down to business. The core use case is to find the nearest docking station and yell for bikes lets you do this fast.
This app has the best offline user experience. All the map tiles are stored on the device and use Open Street Map Data. The licence of the open maps allows this whereas google maps does allow developers to store map data offline. The effect of this means when you are in the tube you can still browse the map and see the locations of the docking stations just as easily as if you had a good connection.
There are relatively few downsides to this app. Occasionally you may wish to plan route and this will not be able to help. Also I slightly prefer google maps look and feel to the open maps.
Conclusion
All three apps are great and you wont go wrong with any of them. I always use the yell for bikes app since it has the most streamlined use. If you think you will need a journey planner get the fliplab app as well.
Thoughts, comments, ideas? I would love to hear from you...
