Citymapper uses Twitter's Fabric SDK to roll out new features

19.02.2015
Citymapper has revealed how it is using Twitter's software development kit to build new features and monitor the performance of its app.

The urban navigation app has been expanding rapidly and it is now available in 17 cities worldwide, including cities such as London, San Francisco, Madrid and Berlin.

The London-based team is constantly updating the Android, iOS and web apps with new features, and the latest update, available on iOS and Android from today, is an in-built Twitter feed that displays Tweets from official travel agencies.

Joe Hughes, mobile lead at Citymapper, told Techworld that it provides Citymapper users with some colour on what's happening with their city's transport network at any given moment in time.

"We used TwitterKit inside of Fabric (the Twitter SDK) to allow us to show the full content of the Tweets including icons and photos, embedded images," he said ahead of Flock, Twitter's first UK mobile developer in London today.

For example, Citymapper users in London can now see Tweets from the @TfLTravelAlerts account within the Citymapper app.

"Fabric makes it really easy to incorporate Tweets," said Hughes. "There's even the ability to style the appearance a little bit to match what we were going for in the app.

"Twitter has been very helpful in making sure we got things up and running."

Citymapper is also using Twitter's Crashlytics platform to monitor the performance of its app.

"We've been using that since the beta programme a couple of years ago and that's been super valuable for us," said Hughes. "If there's a problem with any versions of the app we release we can see it immediately. IT also helps us spot potential problems internally during beta testing."

Citymapper, launched by former Google engineer Azmat Yusuf in 2012, raised $10 million at the end of last year in a funding round led by European tech startup investor Balderton Capital.

(www.techworld.com)

Sam Shead

Zur Startseite