We’ve just released the 2.5 update to all our iPhone metro maps! That’s five new updates for Shanghai, Beijing, Guangzhou, Singapore and Hong Kong!

Here’s what’s new!

Google Maps – By popular demand, you can now see a street map for every station. This is really handy if you’re arriving at a metro station and want to see which exit to take, or how to reach your destination. Just tap on any station, then tap Street map (requires a 3G or Wifi internet connection).

New interface – We’ve simplified the interface for browsing stations and planning routes. Just tap any station to see this standard popup. You can switch between Metro map, Street map and Train times (for first/last train times). You can also listen to the name of the station as an audio clip by tapping the station name, or start planning a route.

Easy routeplanning – Planning routes is now even simpler. Tap on the first station, and choose “Plan route”. Then tap on your destination. The route, time and price will be immediately shown. We’ve also updated the Singapore app prices for the new distance-based fares.

Version 2.5 is a FREE update for all existing users. Download our apps today!

By popular request, we’ll soon be including integrated Google Maps in our iPhone metro map apps for Shanghai, Beijing, Guangzhou, Hong Kong and Singapore. Just tap on any station and choose “Street map” to see the area around the selected station. You can pan and zoom the map to see more.

If you’ve got any suggestions on this or other features, do get in touch!

Stay tuned for updates to all our apps to support Google maps over the next few weeks.

We’re delighted to announce new PDF maps for all our ExploreMetro cities! Now you can print out and carry a handy A4 printout for Beijing, Guangzhou, Hong Kong and Singapore, besides the Shanghai map we already offered.

To download the maps, just click on the “PDF map” tab on any of our city sites, or follow the download links below. The PDF maps are available in both English and Chinese versions. If you have any feedback or spot any mistakes on the map, do get in touch!

Direct links:

• Shanghai – English, Chinese
• Beijing – English, Chinese
• Guangzhou – English, Chinese
• Hong Kong – English, Chinese Simplified, Chinese Traditional
• Singapore – English, Chinese

To celebrate the fact that Explore Hong Kong has just been upgraded to version 1.5, including great new features like “find my nearest station”, we’ve gone KowLOONY! Until Sunday 21st March, you’ll be able to download Explore Hong Kong absolutely free!

Ten great reasons to get Explore Hong Kong:

Hurry! Download Explore Hong Kong from the iTunes App Store now! Sale ends Sunday 21st March!

We’re proud to announce the launch of the fourth ExploreMetro iPhone app – the Explore Hong Kong MTR map. We took all the best features from our Shanghai, Beijing and Guangzhou maps and made them even better!

So, you’ve got route planning for all journeys on the MTR network with times and prices, offline access, station names in English, Traditional Chinese and Simplified Chinese, and free updates for life!

We think Explore Hong Kong is the best Hong Kong MTR app for iPhone and iPod touch. The app is fully up to date with the latest information, including new stations at LOHAS Park and Austin which opened in late 2009.

Explore Hong Kong is available on the iTunes App Store today priced at just $0.99. Want to try it out for free? Follow us on Twitter or become our fan on Facebook where we’ll be handing out some free promo codes!

Read on for some sample screenshots: (more…)

First, three great updates to our maps which are already live; then I’ll tell you about three new features coming soon to ExploreMetro!

• ExploreHK update – our Hong Kong map got some love, with a fully-updated routeplanner including the new station at Austin and changes to the East and West Rail Lines.
• New audio for Hong Kong and Guangzhou – now you can hear how any station name sounds just by clicking on the station name, then pressing the “play” button. For Hong Kong, you can practice your Cantonese
• Nearby places in Metropedia. For every station in the Shanghai Metropedia/Beijing Subwaypedia/Guangzhou Metropedia/Hong Kong MTRpedia, we now show a “Places near” section with links to local places’ Wikipedia articles. This is a new feature so feedback is very welcome!

And coming soon…
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You wait ages for a iPhone metro map, then three come along at once Building on the success of our ExploreShanghai Shanghai metro iPhone app (still available at the introductory price of just $0.99!) we’re working on not one but three new iPhone apps: ExploreBeijing, ExploreGuangzhou and ExploreHK.

Stay tuned for further announcements, but until then here’s a screenshot to whet your appetite (click to enlarge)!

If you’d like to be notified when we launch our apps for Beijing, Guangzhou or Hong Kong, leave a message on our contact page.

We’ve just pushed out a change to all our maps (Shanghai, Beijing, Guangzhou and Hong Kong) which dramatically increases speed and responsiveness! You should now find dragging the map around and planning routes faster than ever before.

Another late night at the office? Worried you’re going to miss the last train home? We’ve just pushed out an update to all our maps (Shanghai, Beijing, Guangzhou and Hong Kong) which lets you see at a glance which lines are still open.

Log on to ExploreShanghai at 10:33pm and you’ll see something like this: the greyed out stations are already closed, while the white stations still have train services.

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Today we launched a new standardised look for our four city sites ExploreShanghai, ExploreBeijing, ExploreGuangzhou and the brand new ExploreHK.

The navigation bar at the top of the screen has been simplified to give you quick access to the two most popular areas of the site: the interactive map and “pedia”.
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