Tag: mobile app

People taking the subway in the Big Apple will find it easier with the use of their smartphones.

This year is off to a promising start for mobile commerce in New York City, where a new app has been created to help with some of the major changes that are happening to the public transportation system there.

The Metropolitan Transit Authority s releasing a helpful iOS app to assist riders with their trips.

It has been announced by the Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTS) that it is now going mobile with a brand new app designed for Apple device users such as iPhones. This lets those smartphone users who take one of seven train lines plan their trips in a way that is more detailed that has ever been made possible before.

This mobile commerce application from the MTS is meant to make a tremendous difference in the use of the system.

It is the first of its nature for the largest system of subway trains in the United States. The mobile commerce application uses data regarding the location of the trains to help to provide commuters with exceptionally specific and accurate details. This includes arrival times that are right up to the minute,

At the moment, this mobile commerce feature is available only on 7 out of the 24 total subway lines in New York City. However, many speculate that if this app proves to be popular and successful, then it will be expanded for use in the other lines, as well. This would likely be a gradual process.

The seven lines for which there is data through the mobile commerce app are “updated signals yoked to centralized computers able to transmit location and speed data for every train in motion,” said the Wall Street Journal.

This is precisely what is required to be able to obtain this type of information for a live mobile commerce app, but it has come with quite a price tag for the MTA. According to the authority, the new signals installation came with a cost of over $228 million, which will be stretched over a period of 11 years. The MTA also pointed out that an Android and Windows Phone edition of the application will also be released soon.

Payleven has now stepped out of Germany for Android support in the Italy, Poland, and the U.K.

Payleven has just announced that its Android mobile payments app is exploding its way throughout Europe, as it leaves its previously exclusive Germany in favor of an addition of three more markets, which include Italy, Poland, and the United Kingdom.

The app can now be downloaded in any of those countries through the Google Play Store.

The iOS app from that mobile payments company was already available in every market where that service is available. This includes Germany, the United Kingdom, Poland, Italy, Brazil, and the Netherlands. However, the company recognized that the Android environment presents a much larger number of challenges, simply because of the broad range of different types of hardware.

This meant that the mobile payments service needed to take far more variables into account.

A Payleven spokesperson explained that “As Android devices have different hardware components, it needs refinement to ensure app liability. So to actually launch Android perfectly in many countries is a long [process].”

Equally, though, while Android mobile payments may have meant greater complexity, it also has a tremendous user base, as the operating system has become a major dominant platform in the mobile commerce ecosystem. In fact approximately 70 percent of all worldwide smartphone shipments involve Android based devices.

This operating system is especially popular in the European market. For example, more than 70 percent of smartphones sold in Germany are based on that platform.

The Android mobile payments app from Payleven supports a number of different popular devices that use the platform. The company placed its primary compatibility focus on the most commonly used handsets, which include the Samsung Galaxy Nexus, Galaxy SIII, Galaxy SII, as well as the HTC One Series line, which includes the One S, V, and X.

This mobile payments application allows merchants to use a dongle that is plugged into a compatible device in order to be able to accept debit and credit card transactions. The company charges the merchant 2.75 percent per transaction. It currently supports swipe-and-sign, but it has announced that in the first part of next year, it will also have a dongle that will accept chip-and-pin cards.