London is the greatest city in the world. That’s an undeniable fact. And one of the many things that makes our capital so great is by and large most people adhere to the unwritten-but-very-much-official tube Code of Conduct. Yes, standing on the right hand side of the escalator is a given, but while it may annoy Northerners, we happen to love the bit which states you must ignore everyone around you no matter what (minus harassment situations, of course). But that may soon be about to change with the launch of the TubeChat app.

Is minding your own business in silence good manners or is it doing us harm? Well, the makers of TubeChat think it’s definitely the latter. But rather than forcing your upbeat tones on unwitting commuters, TubeChat hooks you up via Bluetooth to other London Underground users who want to make the most of the journey too.

As it works through Bluetooth, you can fill in those three WiFi-less minutes between stops by chatting to anyone within 200 metres of your location. So basically, anyone on your train. As well as finding individuals to talk to, you can also join group chats with up to seven other users and also play classic games like I Spy.

The app is decentralised, which means TubeChat won’t be gathering any nasty data on users’ profiles or conversations like some other chat apps, and users can change their username at will and leave conversations whenever they want. We have doubts it’ll ever be used for much else other than Night Tube pick-ups but maybe that’s just the London cynic in us!

TubeChat is available for iOS now, with an Android version planned to follow quickly next year. If nothing else, it’ll certainly be better than those ‘Tube Chat’ badges of 2016… Find out more here.