Oyster Card
This app does only one thing: displays your Oyster card balance.
I developed this tiny app for me and my friends, and I found it quite useful so I thought: why not share it with other people?
Any comment and suggestion is much appreciated.
Enjoy!
Features:
- Login to your TfL account to display your Oyster card balance
- Displays balance for single or multiple registered cards
- Rename multiple cards to better distinguish them
- Sign up directly from the app
- Check your travelcard info
This app is not endorsed by Transport for London.
Hey, I’m curious. While we can gain access to our Oyster accounts, displaying relevant and current details, is there a way to top up the balance from within the app? Is it even a possibility to accomplish such a thing with the accreditation from TFL? If we were to do such a thing, would apple take a 30% slice commission off TFL? It’s the same with the national lottery app, in being unable to add funds to the account however most betting apps facilitate it. Really appreciate your opinion and good thinking with the app, it’s funny how slow the big organisations are.
Hi Jhaime,
the Oyster Card app, just as other similar apps, is basically accessing user’s information without any support from TfL.
As stated on my app description, the app was born only to find a quick and dirty solution to a quite simple task: display my Oyster Card balance.
Unless TfL gives us developers a proper set of API to interact with their data in a safe and reliable way, it is quite worthless to invest time developing other connected services, such as the top-up feature.
It would be great to keep developing this apps, since they are very useful to say the least.
Let’s hope TfL understand the importance of such services
Glad to hear your opinion as well.
Sincerely,
Marcello
I suggest adding a facebook like button for the blog!
Helen
Marcello
Super little app – well done!
Question – I have FIVE cards on my account and your app only shows FOUR of them. Is this a limitation of the app?
Cheers, Patrick
Hi Patrick,
thanks!
There’s no limitation in the app so I guess is somehow connected with how it is displayed on the TfL website.
When you check your account on their website, the list of cards is on one or more pages?
I’ve locked myself by using the wrong password. I can’t get back in and there are no instructions for recovering forgotten passwords
Hi Stephan,
all the authentication process is handled by TfL. You should go to TfL website and recover your password there.
Hi
Nice app,clear and simple. But I can’t see how to add my husband’s card and give them different names as you have done above. The only way I can add him is to log out my user name and then log back in as him. I was both our cards to show as above. How do I do that?
Hi Sandra,
thanks for your kind comment.
Every single card is connected to one and only one account. So if you have already registered one card with your account and the other one with your husband’s, unfortunately there’s no chance you can see them together.
If you want to add a new card to an existing account, all you have to do is log in to the official TfL website https://oyster.tfl.gov.uk/oyster/entry.do and follow the instructions.
Have a nice day!
Hey great app,
I wanted to do something like this for my computing project, where do you get the api details to display the account details etc..?
Cheers,
Mitchell
Hi Mitchell,
thanks for your comment.
It’s a useful app indeed but unfortunately there’s no official API.
TfL website is not supporting this kind of apps, especially since there’s an authentication form involved, so all you can do is either wait until TfL develops a proper API or try to guess how the form works, read and format its response accordingly.
Honestly, it’s a very bad way of doing things, I’m not happy with that and I’m ready to remove the app from the app store if TfL wants that, but I also think it’s a real shame that there’s no easy/official way to have such a service on a mobile device…
So, it’s pretty much up to you. Good luck with your project
Sincerely,
Marcello
I would like to add other Oyster Cards. How can I do that. Thanks
Hi Jesmond,
unfortunately at the moment there’s no way to add a new card from the app.
All you have to do is log in to the official TFL website at this address: https://oyster.tfl.gov.uk/oyster/entry.do and insert your new card through their website.
After that, your new card will be visible also in the Oyster Card App.
Let me know if it works as expected
Marcello
Hey love this app but after the 1.3 update it doesn’t work anymore just crash’s after you open it (iPhone 4 IOS 4.3.4) Please fix !
Karl
Hi Karl,
thanks for the comment. There’s a nasty bug indeed.
It seems that all the updated versions are crashing.
I’ll investigate on that ASAP. In the meantime, you can delete and download the app again and this should fix the problem.
Have a great day!
Hi,
1.3.1 still crashes on startup. Tried to remove the app and install again – didn’t help.
Thanks for your comment Dmitri, I’m going to investigate further on that crash since it’s not connected with the previous one.
take my word, i would not spread the app. its soley for my personal use. i love the GUI compared to my travel check app. i would even pay you for the hard work in developing the app. let me know. thanks
Hi Rahim,
thanks a lot for your interest but at this point I’d rather not spread an app that is not approved by TfL and use their data without permission
Kind regards
hi, i justed update ios to 4.3.1 and the didnt backup the oystercard app. any chance of you send the ipa via email. would really apperciate it. thanks
love the app, if you aint releasing the app on the store, could you send me the ipa so i could install it via cydia. the alternative oyster apps are kinda crap. hope to hear from you. thanks
Thanks Rahim,
I really appreciate that.
Unfortunately TfL is not permitting any use of their data and they are going to invalidate this kind of app soon.
For this reason all the code I wrote for Oyster Card will be useless and this is why I removed the app from the store.
Keep using it while it’s working, sorry about that.
Updated to the latest version. Was working fine with PAYG balance. Since I’ve added a monthly travelcard on my card, it doesn’t show anything anymore. Bug ?
Hi D Pecheux,
thanks for taking the time to report your experience.
It definitely sounds like a bug and I’m dealing with travelcard integration for the next update.
Hope to release a new version in the next few days.
Thanks again!
Loved the look of your app- can’t see my balance on the oyster app even after login; is there anything I can do to fix it?
Hi Mat,
thanks for using (or at least trying to…) Oyster card
Do you have a pay as you go or a travel card (daily, weekly…) ?
I’m asking because the app has been designed and tested around the pay as you go type (the only one I got, so far) and I’m not sure about what kind of response could arrive from the TfL system once you register a travel card.
Hope to test it as soon as possible.
Let me know, and thanks in advance for your help.
Bye!