Over the next six days I’ll introduce some of the features of our upcoming ExploreShanghai iPhone app! Today: pan and zoom. One of the tricky things about using a map on a small screen like the iPhone is navigating around. This is only going to get harder as more lines are added in Shanghai in the run-up to Expo 2010!

In ExploreShanghai, we solved this by using the iPhone’s standard “pinch to zoom” controls. When you launch the app you’ll be zoomed out. To zoom in, place two fingers on the screen and spread them apart. The map will zoom in to show you the area around your fingers. You can pan around the map by dragging with a single finger. See the image below to see how it works.

ExploreShanghai is now live in the App Store Download it today!

Welcome back from the October break! Community member ‘aeiounm’ alerted me to updated timetables for Shanghai Metro line 3 and line 4, which came into effect on September 28th.

Thanks to two new trains, the time between services during rush-hour is now only 5 minutes (though you still may have to wait a long time off-peak).

First and last train times have also been changed (for the better, mainly!) Trains on Line 3 now run 30-40 minutes later. The last trains now depart at 22:30 and 22:35, arriving at the termini stations at 23:34 and 23:40. Line 4 has also received some love. The last trains now run about 15 minutes later, with the last Line 4 trains reaching Yishan Road at 23:30.

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Beijing Subway Line 4 will open on September 25, according to reports! Line 4 is run by Hong Kong’s MTR Corporation, but is fully integrated with the rest of the network (including the standard 2 RMB fare). We’ve just pushed out an update to our ExploreBeijing site with the new line.
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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.

Sometimes when you’re riding the Shanghai Metro it can be hard to know where in the city you are. By popular demand we’ve added the Huangpu River as a blue line on our interactive Shanghai metro map. Now you’ll never be confused whether you’re in Puxi or Pudong.

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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 updated the printable PDF versions of our Shanghai metro map. The new English version includes the new line 8 stations and there’s a new Chinese version. If you have any comments or suggestions for the PDF versions, please get in touch.

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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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We’re pleased to announce the newest addition to ExploreMetro’s city metro maps: ExploreHK.com is an interactive map of the Hong Kong MTR.

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