I'm thrilled to announce that Pribyvalka got its first major update #3.2.4 since the previous one that happened almost 5 years ago just before the World Cup 2018.

We've heard a lot of interesting and passionate feedback since the original launch in 2015 — at least 3K App Store reviews total and almost 1500 in-app reviews every year. We had addressed some points before, however, this time we've implemented the top 3 user wishes:

1. Favorites — now the stops that you like are always there on the home page.
2. Plate number — a quick tap on the transport row on the arrivals list screen now shows the plate number and the model of transport.
3. Show route on map — now, in addition to the step-by-step route overview, we render the suggested public transport directions on the map.

There were other wishes too, for example, see the transport live on the map — like on Android. This is a good idea but most likely something for the next update ;-)

It's been live for a week already, and two thirds of the users are already on the latest version. The monthly active users number is healthy — close to 35K which is a solid number for the quietest month of the year. The peak was 60K+ in 2018, and I do hope that in September/October we will see the regular 43-47K regular users. The app is as stable as a mountain — as usual — which makes me as a software engineer really happy.

Full what's new notes from App Store:

We slightly got out of our usual cadence to update Pribyvalka once every two years, so we switched to a 5-year one now:
– We've spent all this time thinking where to put the Like button (but still haven't reached an agreement).
– We added the glorious registration plate number and vehicle model label.
– We tried to ask multiple AI chatbots how to open a .sketch file in 2023 to refresh the app icon. We gave up and made it in Figma.
– We wanted to fix stuff under the hood but instead we were surprised that everything still works.
– We built the route visualization on the map. The route calculation algorithm quality is still stuck in 2017, but at least now it looks gorgeous.
– We have been thoroughly gaining experience in the best tech companies of Russia and the world, but the result is still the same – we added new bugs and fixed the old ones.
We do hope that everyone connected to Samara – whether living there, or visiting, or just feeling some nostalgia with the help of Russian VPN – will enjoy swiping the cards and tapping the hearts on their warm summer night.

Download from App Store