Everyday September 2026

5 apps for a long train ride

A long train ride is a few hours with nothing expected of you, which is exactly why it disappears into the phone. These five give it a shape: the ticket and the live map, a stretch of focused work that waits when you look out of the window, a book, a language lesson the length of one stop, and a puzzle for when the light goes.

The apps for a long train ride are Trainline, Focus Train, Amazon Kindle, Duolingo and NYT Games. I built Focus Train; the other 4 are other developers’ apps.

MiaAppLog— an iOS developer who reviews other people’s apps
Published September 2026 · apps and prices last checked 13 October 2026

Four stars is my score for how well an app answers this moment. An app I built gets four and a half — that is a rule, not a comparison. The App Store’s own average is on each card beside it.

1. 

   Trainline

   ★★★★★★★★★★4.0 · Free · Travel · App Store 4.9 (10,326)

   Book the ticket and follow the live journey, across Europe.

   Skip it if your plans might change — booking is easy, but refunds and rebookings after a cancellation are where the one-star reviews pile up, booking fees included.

   Official site ↗More lists with Trainline

   
2. 

   Focus Train Editor’s pick

   ★★★★★★★★★★4.5 · Free · Productivity · App Store 5.0 (5)

   Board, and the timer rolls like a train ride; look away and it just waits.

   App Store ↗More lists with Focus Train

   
3. 

   Amazon Kindle

   ★★★★★★★★★★4.0 · Free · Book · App Store 4.9 (5,865,423)

   Every book you've bought, plus free samples of the next one, in a pocket.

   Skip it if you read with a lot of highlighting — the recent redesigns are what long-time readers complain about most, with highlights taking more taps and the app slower to open.

   Official site ↗More lists with Amazon Kindle

   
4. 

   Duolingo

   ★★★★★★★★★★4.0 · Free · Education · App Store 4.7 (5,489,149)

   Bite-sized lessons in 40+ languages, small enough for one stop.

   Skip it if you want steady progress more than a game — reviewers describe energy limits, chests and upgrade screens between short lessons, and courses being rewritten while they were halfway through.

   Official site ↗More lists with Duolingo

   
5. 

   NYT Games

   ★★★★★★★★★★4.0 · Free · Games · App Store 4.8 (294,176)

   Wordle, the Crossword and Spelling Bee, with new puzzles every day.

   Skip it if you only came for Wordle — it asks for an account first, more of the games now sit behind the subscription, and reviewers report subscriptions not carrying across devices.

   Official site ↗More lists with NYT Games

   

Focus Train is one of mine — everything else on this list is someone else’s app. How that works.