Apple kills Routesy app, my iPhone gets less useful

June 27, 2009 | Anthony Ha | Comments | |

Updated

sad-iphoneThe fuss continues over Apple’s capricious acceptance policy for its iPhone/iPod Touch App Store, most recently with the rejection of an app called Hottest Girls. But for me and a few other San Franciscans, there’s a much bigger cause of outrage — the disappearance of a public transit app called Routesy.

If you don’t live in San Francisco, you’ve probably never heard of Routesy, but it was the very first iPhone app I paid money for, and until recently it was the one I used most. Basically, it combined a slick interface with the iPhone’s GPS and the bus arrival times available at NextMuni.com. I could look up a bus line and direction, then Routesy would provide the arrival times at the stop nearest to me. (Google Maps provides public transit times, but it’s based on the official schedules, rather than real-time data extrapolated from the buses’ actual locations.)

Here’s the problem: A company called NextBus Information Systems claimed to own the data and wanted to take a chunk of Routesy’s revenue. Then it decided that the app wasn’t popular enough to be worth a deal, so it asked Apple to stop approving updates. Routesy-maker Steven Peterson says that when the app broke due to a change in the NextBus site, he submitted a fix to the App Store, but Apple turned it down, essentially killing Routesy. (The app has subsequently disappeared from the store.)

So, how can a private company own bus arrival times? Well, the answer gets pretty convoluted and is outlined in more detail at SF Appeal and SF Weekly, but it looks like NextBus has a contract with the city saying the company has the right to be “the sole agent for the commercial use of the NextBus real-time prediction data.” (The distinction here is that NextBus doesn’t own the arrival times per se, but rather the predictions generated by a specific technology.) At the same time, a Muni spokesperson told both the Appeal and the Weekly that the public agency owns the data.

The legal situation remains unclear, but either way, this is a crummy situation for any developers hoping to do something cool or useful with Muni data. In the correspondence that Peterson provided to the Appeal, NextBus says it’s not interested in striking a deal on an app with relatively few downloads and no recurring revenue, and it also says being a free app wouldn’t help either, since free apps are “commercial” in the sense that they improve the iPhone, which is a commercial product. So Routesy is gone, and a commenter at the Appeal says another app called MuniTime faced the same objections. (I’m hoping Google will also incorporate real-time schedules into Google Maps, but the search giant probably has the money to strike a deal if that turns out to be necessary.)

Luckily iMuni, the app I switched to when Routesy broke, is still available. Presumably that’s because it doesn’t pull NextMuni data, but rather provides a navigation system that eventually loads the NextMuni site. So Muni-riding iPhone users aren’t necessarily suffering, but that may be another blow for Peterson. Even if Routesy comes back to the iPhone (and Peterson says he’s looking at his legal options), many of his customers will have defected to a competitor.

I’ve emailed NextBus for comment and will update if I hear back.

Update: NextBus Information Systems’ Chief Operating Officer Alex Orloff sent this response to my query about Routesy vs. iMuni:

First of all, iMuni, like iCommuteSF, worked with us to license the data for use.  So we have no problem with iMuni or any other app that is interested in using the data and is willing to license it from us.  We encourage this.  We contacted Routesy as well, after licensing to iCommuteSF and iMuni, in the hopes of licensing to Routesy under the exact same terms.  Routesy refused to talk to us as his position was essentially that we have no right to license the data.  We welcome application developers who are interested in using the data and simply require that they are willing to discuss and come to terms on licensing with us.  I have no interest in killing apps, I want to encourage apps that use the NextBus data and I encourage app developers to contact us.

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About the Author, Anthony Ha

Anthony is VentureBeat's assistant editor, as well as its reporter on enterprise technology, cloud computing, and tech policy. Before joining VentureBeat in 2008, Anthony worked at the Hollister Free Lance, where he won awards from the California Newspaper Publishers Association for breaking news coverage and writing. He attended Stanford University and now lives in San Francisco. Reach him at anthony@venturebeat.com. You can also follow Anthony on Twitter.

  • nonseq
    Apple didn't kill Routsey from what I read in the copy. Perhaps whoever writes the headlines should read the content first. If the author wrote the headline then the whole thing is disingenuous.
  • Mike
    Apple is the company who declined the software update for Routesy, and the ones who removed it from the App Store. They control the channel for iPhone apps, so ultimately the decision to remove or deny any app a presence in the App Store is theirs, so the headline isn't exactly disingenuous.

    It's of interest to iphone users because Apple has a history of doing this without any explanation to users, and people who paid for said app are usually left out in the cold as to why the software they paid for is no longer usable.

    It's relevant to the Venture Beat audience because it involves Apple, no? Sure it's a click-grabbing move, but it is really being dishonest? Apple removed the App, not NextBus IS, not the Routesy developer. Apple may not have made the decision on their own, but they ultimately pulled the plug on the program, and if it's something that continues moving forward, Apple needs to be more forthcoming as to the reason for these Application's removal to the customers who actually paid for them, or it could scare people away from the idea of paying for (or even making) indie iphone apps like Routesy in the future.

    It shouldn't take a bunch of digging from a journalist to tell you why the product you paid for no longer works... I think that's more the point of the article, and why Apple is front and center in the headline. You people need hobbies other than bashing journalists for doing what all journalists have done since the inception of the newspaper.
  • nonseq
    Journalists? The headline was and is misleading and aimed to generate hits. I stand by my opinion.
  • Eric R.
    I think the headline was pretty accurate. Apple has a bad track record of dumping apps and this is just another example. They didn't have to reject Routesy, they _chose_ to, because they thought they might have to actually support and defend their community of developers. It shows a lack of integrity, and it's become a pattern of behavior.
  • I wrote the headline, and yes, my rationale was similar to what Eric R. said -- ultimately it was Apple's decision to heed NBIS' request and block the updates. And I highlighted Apple in the headline because this is primarily of interest to VentureBeat readers because as an iPhone story, not as a municipal policy story.

    That said, though I'm obviously cranky about the move, I don't believe there's anywhere where I say that Apple made a decision that was wrong or legally indefensible. I don't believe I know enough about the case to say one way or another.
  • nonseq
    Perhaps a less evocative word than "kills" would have been appropriate and certainly more accurate. Apple certainly rejected and subsequently removed but did it "Kill?"
  • Mike
    Or maybe you just need a real hobby.

    Criticizing journalists over the minutiae of their vocabulary choices smacks of a sad, lonely person with no idea what to do with all of the free time they must have on their hands. Maybe getting a Journalism degree and subsequently publishing your own works on a legit newsblog for random a-holes on the internet to criticize you over would be a good place to start...

    Stop fanning the flames. You never really got the fire started in the first place.
  • nonseq
    Gee, and I thought I had a journalism degree and had edited a couple of journals. Silly me. I haven't done a "newsblog" though.

    I stand by my perception of why the word "kills" appeared in the head and it wasn't, in my opinion, for accuracy but rather to generate hits.

    But your point is well taken and I will say no more. Good use of ad hominem attack though.
  • I would agree that Apple did "kill" it. Maybe you're unfamiliar with the language used in online discourse? Just FYI: the query "apple killed iphone app" (without quotes) gets over 11M hits (that's "M" as in "Million", in case you're unfamiliar with that too) on Google.

    Apple pulled the plug on the app, so therefore Apple killed it. Now whether it was justified or not, can be debated.
  • nonseq
    It could be that I am unfamiliar with the language used in online discourse. I thought we were using English. Darn. A million hits repeating the same cites over and over again really aren't all that impressive. I regret that I have stirred up this tempest in a teapot. Was Apple forced to "kill" the app? Did the head indicate that?
  • philwq
    The opening paragraph blames Apple and the article blames another company. If I were Apple I'd sue you just in spite of bad journalism.
  • Mike
    "The fuss continues over Apple’s capricious acceptance policy for its iPhone/iPod Touch App Store, most recently with the rejection of an app called Hottest Girls. But for me and a few other San Franciscans, there’s a much bigger cause of outrage — the disappearance of a public transit app called Routesy."

    Where exactly does the author blame Apple in that paragraph?
  • nonseq
    "Apple’s capricious acceptance policy"
    While the author is entitled to his opinion, it is just that- opinion. Apple's capricious acceptance policy has far from been established as fact. In all of the cases when apps have been dropped or refused, Apple has offered a fairly reasonable explanation. In the case of Routsey, would it have been appropriate for Apple (the deepest pockets in the room) to expose itself and it's stakeholders to defending itself in litigation from NBIS? We can all decide whether or not we agree with Apple's decisions but they were hardly capricious.
  • paulsnx2
    "In all of the cawses when apps have been dropped or refused, Apple has offered a fairly reasonable explaination...."

    Really? Maybe in some parallel universe, but not in the one I live in.

    http://www.appgiveaway.com/articles/2009/Jun/ap...
    "Apparently Apple rejected the RSS app because it linked to a scene from the film "Downfall" that was created by EFF Board Chairman Brad Templeton. "

    http://www.engadget.com/2009/05/11/apple-reject...
    This time the company's rejected Maza's Drivetrain, an app that allows users to remotely control the Transmission Bittorrent app, because "this category of applications is often used for the purpose of infringing third party rights."
    <<Never mind that a Browser is also often used to download infringing copyright>>

    http://www.ipodnn.com/articles/09/05/19/app.sto...
    The third version of Hot Dog Down A Hallway, Metaversal Studios' only iPhone app, has been rejected by the App Store. Apple cites "explicit content" as the reason for its decision. Metaversal Studios is unconvinced by the label, as the game, despite its suggestive name, has previously been given a low age rating of nine and up by the App Store.

    http://www.blog.montgomerie.net/whither-eucalyptus
    If you’re wondering why Eucalyptus is not yet available, it’s currently in the state of being ‘rejected’ for distribution on the iPhone App Store. This is due to the fact that it’s possible, after explicitly searching for them, to find, download from the Internet, and then read texts that Apple deems ‘objectionable’. The example they have given me is a Victorian text-only translation of the Kama Sutra of Vatsyayana.
    <<This one got reversed by the amazing bad press thrown Apple's way. No doubt that the company that owns ITunes wouldn't have done anything about the stupidity of this decision had not the bad press threatened their pocketbook>>

    ...

    And I quit. Those were just the TOP entries in a Google search .... in my universe. In yours, perhaps those apps and Apple's tortured logic cannot be accessed...
  • nonseq
    Well Paul, if don't have any skin in the game it's easy to cry out censorship and abridgment of free expression. If Apple errs on the side of extreme caution, so be it. You could maybe develop your own device, invest millions in creating the device and the infrastructure to support it, open your own app store, and violate copyright or community standards to your heart's content. Unless you have something at risk, you have little foundation on which to stand. Perhaps you've done that. And, if so my hat's off to you. If not, you're just making a lot of noise putting someone else's enterprise at risk for your vision of freedom of expression.
  • paulsnx2
    You know, your reply is completely off topic.

    Your claim is that "In all of the cawses when apps have been dropped or refused, Apple has offered a fairly reasonable explaination....".

    I cited the examples that Google served up of Apple exactly failing to do just that. You might argue a "copyright" issue on the bit torrent application. I thought about not including it. However, in the end the argument stands. You can easily use such a application legitimately, and you can easily infringe on copyrights with a browser. Thus Apple's response fails your standard here.

    Were the issue Solely about copyrights, your response might have some traction. However, 3 of the 4 examples I gave had nothing what so ever to do with copyrights. Do you want more examples? I just stopped because I thought four were enough.

    You want to admit that Apple does not always clearly explain its actions? Or do you want (as your reply suggests) to simply claim it is Apple's device and technology and they have the right to do with it what they want?

    The later I absolutely agree with. Never had an issue with THAT observation. I only refuted the idea that Apple has "fairly reasonable explanations" of why applications are refused or dropped.

    And for the record, I am waiting for a more open platform before I invest in a smart phone. Nothing absolutely against Apple, but more competition, more options of carriers, lower prices, better performance is needed to pull me into the market place. I'd like to run my own applications, and I don't want anyone (like Apple) deciding what I can or cannot run. I nearly 90 percent of the time have a computer running in front of me or near by. Nobody restricts what I run on those machines. So in the end, I don't have the burning need for a smart phone yet.... but that could change.
  • nonseq
    All of the cases of which I am aware had legitimate explanations and not just copyright but "community standards" issues as well. While I don't necessarily favor censorship, I am unwilling to force others to put their assets at risk to fight my battles for me.

    Yes, Apple should be more forthcoming. Having said that, Apple has maintained it's reputation and it's cache by keeping strict control of the operating systems and hardware that run those systems. I am a big fan of open source but linux in all of it's versions is simply too hard for me to manage. I don't have the time or the smarts. And while I may not be a computer guru, I too have multiple computers running in my environment and have had since the early CP/M days.

    I saw no real refutation of "fairly reasonable explanations" other than the presupposition that there should be no limits by anyone on anything. And yes, Apple has invested millions and my concern is the capricious way that folks would have them put that investment at risk defending litigation so that copyright, intellectual property rights, and community standards (the majority of your examples) can be usurped.

    And, for the record, I have only a Palm Treo associated with my employment that runs the abysmal mobile windows operating system. I don't own an iPhone but do have an iPod Touch which I find very useful.

    I wish that I had your ability to make open source work for me and Android phones must be very interesting to you. Hopefully everyone will be satisfied in the future.... guys like you and aging computerists like me.
  • paulsnx2
    I think that at the very least, the fact that Apple reversed their decision on Eucalyptus undermines the idea that they had a "fairly reasonable explanation"... The skeptic in me thinks Apple said one thing, but really rejected Eucalyptus for giving access to the Public Domain (which competes with ITunes by some kind of tortured logic). Or they were just being stupid, and the public outcry made them admit a mistake.

    BUT as a lie, or as a mistake, either way they certainly failed to provide an explanation that seemed reasonable to the public.

    Also, one has to wonder about "Community standards" In the case of "Hot Dog Down A Hallway", which was previously rated as being appropriate for ages 9 and up.

    But hey, some people just see what they want to see.
  • nonseq
    I suspect that Eucalyptus was an error. Stanza already links to Project Gutenberg. I was glad that you cited the Eucalyptus example as I found the app to be worth purchasing. I already use Project Gutenberg on a fairly regular basis and Eucalyptus appears to be a great tool. Thank you. I am also glad that Apple reviewed their prior decision and reversed it.
  • Tim
    How did Apple kill Routesy? What garbage.
  • tonyspicuzza
    Please change the title. While it is generating hits, undoubtedly, it is misleading. Apple is not the culprit here. Use your iPhone to do a bit of legal research and it will be incredibly useful in advancing your career.
  • ebeffel
    The title is great just the way it is. Apple controls the market and theiir decision not to sell an app kills it. Ipso facto.

    "Kills" is just the right word for it. It take some reading and thinking to decide whether there was malice or culpability, but kill is the right word. For instance, I kill misbehaving apps on my computer all the time.

    I think the journalists are missing the possibility that kill has a factual, rather than pejorative meaning here.

    Ernie
  • itsmenyc
    Are there any real journalists out there? Another totally misleading title just to get hits. Pathetic!
  • BB
    Agreed. Apple didn't kill anything. Some idiot developer took a risk and based his app off of third party data. The third party pulled the rug out from under him, as they have a right to do. I don't see how Apple can be blamed for respecting NextBus's legal right to the data.

    Developers who build apps based on 3rd party data should not expect the gravy train to run forever.
  • paulsnx2
    Actually, the problem is more complex than you give it credit for. You cannot copyright facts. In as much as the predictions are based on data collected from the system, it is quite questionable to claim ownership of the data.

    We have actual courts for making calls about who owns data, and what restrictions on the use of that data are legal. In this case, Apple has effectively ruled on the question in place of the courts. In my opinion, Apple should never have blocked updates to the application without a court ruling.

    Or are you really going to claim that companies should dispense justice to individuals over whom they might have some control however they see fit?

    Frankly, I find it odd that this third party appealed to Apple rather than the courts. Perhaps they felt the company that runs ITunes would side more easily to their view than the courts?
  • Peter Antypas
    Apple is jittery because they can't afford the risk of litigation. Why defend an app which will lose you money in litigation costs?

    Brilliant strategy on the part of NBIS. Horrible strategy on the part of the lazy app developers who didn't do their homework. Game over.
  • nonseq
    Well said.
  • paulsnx2
    Sorry ... That doesn't even make sense....

    Fair would be to have the courts make the call. Once Apple makes the call, the courts are irrelevant. There is no legal requirement to make Apple accept an application, thus winning the question in court doesn't necessarily help the app developer.

    This might be a "Brilliant strategy on the part of NBIS". But nothing about this makes the app developer "lazy" or implies they didn't "do their homework". For all we know, the app developer has a airtight case that the data does not have to be licensed. Obviously NBIS didn't sue them, where they absolutely could have had they a case. But that isn't necessary.

    And the reason is Apple. Not that NBIS proved anything, but that Apple will side with an IP company cause they both butter their bread on the same side.

    Pass laws against copyfraud (where companies invalidly claim rights to data in the public domain) and we can level the field. Sans that, NBIS + Apple wins regardless of the validity of NBIS's claim
  • spamho
    I agree. There are a lot of misleading titles from technology "journalists". This is why there needs to a clear understanding between so-called citizen journalists (web bloggers) and actual professional journalists who have been trained at the university level to investigate and report.
  • Peter Antypas
    And what makes you think that "professional journalists" don't thrive on sensationalism?
  • subie
    the title Isn't exactly what the article is about???
  • Facebook User
    Just get a car.
  • Look
    @Gabe - And you publish this garbage...You really lost all your integrity!
  • Actually Gabe, I'm getting rid of my car and just riding in yours.
  • benlongo
    This is awful, I understand that a company would want to make some money if another company was using there services. But to decide that the amount that would be offered is not enough, and then to take intentional steps to passive aggressively remove the app from use. Especially when people out there have paid money to use this.

    Also, the worst part is that if they switched to an Ad based system and made it the official iPhone Muni app the amount of users and would surely help increase the potential revenue stemming from it.

    Instead though, it's dead in the water. A creative and novel approach to improving the public transportation in SF.
  • This was a great app.. they sud ve enhanced it instead of killing....
  • Anthony,

    I'm glad you wrote about this. I read about it it on Reddit the other day, and hope it continues to get traction.

    I've never ridden the Muni, but I concur that this situation is complete BS. So far as I can tell, that data is created by the City of San Francisco, and hence is part of the public domain. The ability of this dolt to prevent a hard-working developer from providing a public service with public data is infuriating.

    I hope your story helps the tides of nonsense recede. =)
  • mfwesq
    Sounds like Muni killed Routesy by giving a private company exclusive rights to public data; Apple just didn't want to get hit with a contributory infringement suit.
  • spinoza2
    I can understand your frustration by not having your app any longer, but you can't blame Apple or NextBus for this. Just as with Google and any other service provider, NextBus does not own the municipal bus data, but it does *own* the prediction technology and should be compensated for it. If you're going to find a "smoking gun" to blame, then it's the city for not requiring an "open use" contract with NextBus (which raises the other question whether any viable company like NextBus would agree to such a contract--they have to make money, after all).

    The problem I see is how you channel your frustration into an article that distorts the facts and attempts to lay blame on those "evil" capitalist companies like Apple and NextBus. If you want everything to be free, then I'd suggest relocating to North Korea, which is a model "open source" country.
  • stupid
    That is the stupidest comment I've ever read -- and that's impressive given the amount of stupidity on the web. No, NK is an example of the complete development of state capitalism, where one organization has a monopoly on all capital, and therefore all production. Everything in NK is owned -- by one guy. Nothing is free in NK.

    It's the exact opposite of open source, whose political analogue would be anarchism, not totalitarianism. Do you belong to some kind of religion which requires stupidity?
  • baldy89
    There has to be more than one way to skin this cat, (the problem, not the nextbus guy). If its a prediction, then track the state of the bus relative to the schedule = its a current state of "x" minutes +/- the schedule. I imagine MUNI tracks the locations of their buses using some sort of GPS. If not, GPS enabled cell phones issued to the drivers current state. I am sure there are others.
  • This legal situation is not surprising. In a book I'm reading, A World of Chance (Brenner, Brenner, and Brown), it establishes the precedent for ownership of created information of this type:

    >>>The bucket shops paid only Western Union for the services, but not the Board of Trade. But Western Union and other telegraph companies paid the New York Stock Exchange, the Chicago Board of Trade, and other exchanges high fees to get access to the trading floor and to transmit their quotations. This is the arrangement that the 1905 decision put an end to, recognizing the exchanges’ ownership in the price information they produced, giving them the authority to deprive bucket shops of their quotations.

    So the law is on their side to quash this. Sometimes the law is an ass too.
  • Dale Finley
    I can see why the NYSE would own its data, but transportation is usually governmentally owned and its data in the public domain. We must be missing something.
  • You can see it now. But before court cases like that, it wasn't clear there was any ownership.
  • Harry Seaword
    You're all dumb. I hope the worthless faggot city is swallowed by the sea. That is one good outcome I can see from global warming.
  • nonseq
    Well, since you put it that way. What a coherent, well crafted response.
  • Instead of complain about Apple's policies, vote with your money and don't buy an iPhone. If you do, jailbreak it so you can run what you want. If you're a developer, don't bother submitting things to the App Store. Instead develop your applications as web applications licensed under the AGPL(a free software license designed for network services). It's not just more respectful of your users. We'll all have better apps sooner.
  • adssss
    Uhh, NextBus paid to install the GPS in all the muni buses + trains under a city contract, so yes, they do own the information that is generated from that....Why should some freeloading guy make a profit off of it? They should do the right thing and try to establish a licensing agreement.
  • dp
    Actually, Muni paid $12 million to NextBus for them to install the systems. Since the city owns Muni, that means that taxpayers paid that money.

    Not sure why people think that NextBus donated the GPS. If you buy a computer from Dell, do they own the data on your computer since they made it, even though you paid for the equipment?
  • Yet another internet wannabe talking out his ass.

    FYI: the City paid Nextbus to install the GPS systems and monitoring software.

    Learn to read before you start to type.
  • Dirk
    NextBus has nothing to do with any of this and Alex is not the COO of NextBus.

    Alex works for a company called NextBus Information Systems, which is completely distinct and seperate from NextBus and has nothing to do with NextBus. NextBus has no problem with people using the data...it is Ken at NBIS that does.

    Get your facts straight.
  • Yes, I was clearly confused about that since I described him as " NextBus Information Systems’ Chief Operating Officer Alex Orloff".
  • J.T.Bryant
    Without Michael Jackson do buses really matter? Can Nancy Pelosi unscramble it all for us? It would be best if we hear from Whoopi Goldberg and Al Sharpten on all iApps before going any further. If necessary Obama will apologize, followed by a photo-Op and a cigerette.
  • blinkozo
    Pretty sweet that you can launch a DOS attack simply by writing an angry letter to Apple.
  • dee12345
    Misleading title, if there was ever a job title "Eye Ball Whore", I would name you to be one sir!
  • I'm going to make myself a crown with those words on it.

    More seriously, I explained the rationale for the headline upthread.
  • Name
    I wonder why Routesy can't pull the raw bus data and create its own prediction - while it may be hard or CPU-intensive to do a very accurate prediction, something less accurate could still be useful.
  • Peter Antypas
    You're correct. That's what they should have done in the first place. Of course, most of these bootstrapped startups don't have the capital to pay for legal advice, so they fall into traps like this
  • tim
    And how do you think they are going to do this? You think that data comes out of thin air? Well, sort of it does. All the trains have GPS and cell phone systems on them to transmit location data. All that data is password protected. I can't get to it and I know how it works. How is some guy with a itty bitty iPod program going to pull off the data that NextBus owns?

    So anyway, that's why he can't. It's not available.

    tim in san jose
  • Facebook User
    Or instead of building the scraper code into the app they should've done the scraping on their own server and then used the app to retrieve their localized version of it... that way they wouldn't have to update the app every time the Muni/NextBus website changed. Dumb programming move.
  • Michael
    Totally inappropriate title that implies that Apple killed this app. Although the article itself is reasonably clear and fair-handed, this kind of "headline shocker" is bogus. Don't do it again if you plan to continue to be a 'journalist'.
  • Headline is spot on. Apple killed the app based on a flawed takedown request. If Apple is going to takedown applications, it should verify that the request is legit.
  • very best post
  • melikeylikey
    does anyone have a better title to suggest?
  • tim
    First off, Routesy was nothing but a gleam in the developer's eye when the NextBus system was installed in SF Muni. Hell, iPods were just a thought someone at Apple was imagining then. The prediction system has been around for 10 years now. How do I know? I installed it.

    NextBus was an interesting little startup in the late 90's, based in Emoryville.. Anyone familiar with transit systems in the bay area will recognize the name from the system put into place on the Emoryville Go Round, a transit prediction system donated by NextBus as a working R&D tool. The next system installed was on the #22 bus line in SF. All the trains in SF were done in 1999/2000.

    So who owns the data? Good question. The nextBus prediction system was sold off years ago to a Canadian firm doing bus and transit tracking systems. The firm NBIS (in Emoryville) owns the marketing rights to the data. Ken is the major stakeholder here because the company still owes him money. Millions of dollars. He wants his share back. I don't blame him. So who owns the data? Muni? Probably not. They pay to have a prediction system in place for their riders as well as the use of the data for planning and control of the fleet of trains and buses. NBIS? Probably not. They own the rights to the commercial advertisement on the NextBus system. The Canadians. Bingo.

    And me? I got 11,000 shars of NBIS bathroom wallpaper.

    Nobody owes anyone anything. It would behoove developers to work with the data stream collectors to ensure their apps don't break. It would behoove NBIS to figure out a way to legitimately make money off this, and it would certainly behoove Apple to make sure their app developers can keep paying customers happy.


    tim in san jose
  • "Muni? Probably not."

    What?? MUNI owns the data! It's MUNI's buses. They paid NextBus to install the systems and provide the monitoring and aggregation software. It is their data to do whatever they please with it.

    "They pay to have a prediction system in place for their riders" .... and yet they don't own the data? Come on. You're over-reaching here.

    Public data belongs to the PUBLIC. Don't like it? Don't use it.
  • tim
    I am certainly glad you saw the contracts written up in the late 90's. I'll get off this conversation since I said 'Probably not' as I am not sure of the legal status of ownership. I will guarantee you that you can't get a hold of that information though. I left NextBus in November of 2000 and a lot has happened since then. What hasn't happened is the release of raw data on vehicle positioning.

    Whatever.

    BTW - Yuo hate Muni? Y'ought try the VTA. Now that's a joke of a transit system.


    tim in san jose
  • Alex Orloff has nothing to do with NextBus (Actual). He's one of the two tools at NBIS.

    His claims to the goodness of licensing to iMuni is deceptive at best. Basically what is going on here is that NBIS is demanding protection money or they'll bust your shop. iMuni paid them off, so they get to stay open. The "NBIS" guys appear to be bullies with clubs, and Apple didn't verify their claim before they shut down Routesy.