London Bus Checker makes a stop on Android, wants to make London travel a bit easier

Anyone who lives in or has ever visited London will be well aware of the often nightmarish transportation around the city. A new app to stop by the Android Market, London Bus Checker, aims to take away some of the pain of using a bus in the Capital. 

We'll get the boring bits out of the way first: It is a paid app, setting you back a very reasonable £1.24. There is a "lite" version though which offers up a 30-day free trial before you have to open your wallet. 

The idea behind it is very simple, to provide anyone planning to use a bus in London with as much real time information as possible across the 20,000 bus-stops in the city. The implementation is what sets it apart though, as the information is pulled live from the Transport for London services which provides accurate, up to the minute data. 

The app will locate you via GPS, and then by selecting the relevant stop you can see live arrival/departure information, full route maps, and real time diversion and cancelation information. There's even a homescreen widget that you can set for your local stop and receive the same real-time information right there. 

Applications like this and Hailo (for taxis), are brilliant reasons why smartphones are fast becoming an everyday necessity. Hit the break for download links to the free 30-day lite version and a short promo video from the developers.