For your app-roval: Commutertastic

Apps are fairly amazing, if you think about it in the abstract: A multitude of games, books, songs, videos, calendars and programs crammed into a device roughly the size of a deck of cards? That's the kind of advancement that's worth taking the time to really appreciate. Now that mobile apps are an essential aspect of daily life, each mobile user has found there are some apps that are more than just a fun flash in the pan. Some apps you really just cannot live without.

Personally, I have a core list of about a dozen apps that I would be lost without including maps (because of my incredibly poor sense of direction), a calendar/to-do app (without which I would forget to get anything done, ever), and Pocket (which rules my life in a way that borders on the unhealthy). However, of the many things that I depend on my phone for throughout the day, one of the more serious needs is transit information.

So... I'm walking home then?

Because there are a number of ways to make it from my house to the glorious Engadget offices via San Francisco's MUNI system, I've been testing out a handful of transit apps. Initially, I was motivated by time alone — it can take an awfully long time to traverse this city via bus and at rush hour it's not always a pleasant experience.

Pretty much this. Exactly. Every day.

The catch here is that most public transportation apps only cover specific areas, so some of the apps mentioned here are likely only going to be helpful to other folks in the greater Bay Area — however, since BART is counted as the fifth largest commuter rail system in the country, that's gotta be at least some of you. Here are the apps I'm currently using to find my way home:

xtBus : xtBus is my default public transportation app. It's ad-supported, which gets to be annoying, but it automatically finds my location and displays departure times of the bus lines nearest to me which is obviously handy.

I don't use many of the additional features (the favorites star or the preset pin) but I do appreciate the real-time map that shows the locations of the buses as they move along their routes. However, xtBus doesn't do any kind of route-planning or alternate route listing, and there's no data for BART which is a drawback.

Daily Commute : I wanted a way to time my different routes to work, so I downloaded this app which lets you tap a button upon departing and arriving. It then graphs the collected data into different charts, for example a bar graph and a scatter plot. While the trip history and scatter plot graph were both useful in showing trends in travel time, the other options were a bit funky and extraneous.

For example, the bar graph shows any stopped time as a delay – meaning every time my bus pulled over, the app marked it as a delay. (Walking also counted as a delay.) Likewise because my trip time was set at as an hour, and because my commute takes longer than that, the Lateness Pie Chart shows me as being late literally every day. Also, the free version of the app only allows one destination to be set so I'm surely missing out on some of the features found in the full version.

Transit : Much like xtBus, Transit pulls up my location, then displays detailed data on all the lines nearby –however, it includes MUNI, BART, and CalTrain info (and also has results for nearby Ubers). The results are color-coded, which appeals to my sense of organization, and quickly shows departure information, which is what I need most from a transit app.

Transit will also add bike path info, will do route planning with travel instructions, can provide alarms and notifications, and reports on service changes and delays. It's also awfully pretty: The UI is clean, intuitive, and easy to navigate. Relevant information is displayed right up-front where you need it. It can also show a real-time map of a bus' location, which I often find handy, and there's an Android version.

Hopstop : Here's the deal — I don't actually use Hopstop for my daily commute, mostly because I find the step-by-step instructions unnecessary when I know where I'm going. However, when I travel to cities where I don't know my way around, those same detailed directions are exactly what I'm looking for. Hopstop offers door-to-door navigation for nearly 300 cities, and will not only give you route planning with details but will also help direct you to the bus stop locations, offer up an expected travel time, and provide extensive details on the trip (such as the stops you'll pass along the way and a map of the entire route with real-time data on bus location).

The downside? It doesn't do well finding landmarks — for example, there were no results for either "Dolores Park" or "SF MOMA" so you'll need a specific address to plug in if you want the app to plan your route. And while you can pull up transit times for a line near you, the app will only show departure times for that specific line (meaning it doesn't pull up departure times for all the nearby transit results, but each would have to specifically be searched for).

Citymapper : I just recently threw this one into the mix too, mostly because of a recent Engadget article that highlighted the apps features (notably, it will tell you where to get on a train to be closer to an exit). It is, admittedly, very well detailed and nicely organized. So far, the only thing I don't like about it is how easy it is to get lost while tapping through seemingly endless functions.

Things I do like about it include being able to program and save frequent locations so you can get transit details to or from them in a single tap; additional information on walking, bicycling or cabbing to your destination; and step-by-step directions on the route. Also, it's incredibly easy to share either your entire route (and arrival time) or a Meet Me Somewhere location which is nice to have. It will display info on nearby transit lines (including buses, subways, bike shares and ferries) and gives directions to the transit stops as well. It's also available on Android.

Routesy : I'm going to be honest again – while Routesy is on my phone, I don't exactly recall what attracted me to the app in the first place. Admittedly, I do like the colored bubbles that identify each bus line listed in the Muni tab, but I find it cumbersome to have to click on the line, then the direction, then the stop I'm at, just to find nearby departure times.

There are tabs for Muni, BART, and AC Transit so it does cover the major transit options, however it doesn't provide any routes or trip planning (it will show you alternate bus lines you can take, but I didn't always find the alternatives helpful to my course). Also, while the map feature displays the full bus route, it doesn't show any live data on bus location or indicate where any of the stops are along the route which seems like a missed opportunity.

What apps or gadgets do y'all use to get around your respective cities, towns and metropolises?