# Uber's driver app is piss poor



## SoCalBrit (Jan 21, 2015)

I am an app developer. Like a serious one, apps for Fortune 100 companies serious. As a professional in this area I can categorically tell you what you already know. That Uber's driver app for iPhone is a steaming pile of turd, that they seem to shove out the door at the end of every week, and force you to update to before you can go online.

I started driving in December, and back then the app would do this thing where whenever it went online, offline or a ping came in, Uber Driver would stop my music playing. I like to have my playlist going while driving for me and my riders. Uber apparently doesn't like this. Anyway in my head I would tell myself that Uber is a $40Bn operation and must have a crack team of developers that really know their stuff. I was wrong.

Subsequent updates to the iPhone app brought changes, but not the ones I'd hoped. Just further irritation and sub par user interface. It's like the development has never sought any feedback from drivers, nor ever driven a car themselves (I guess if you work for Uber you don't need to). The latest release that I updated to last night brought the most irritating change to date. I would be playing my music during the ride, then at the end when I swipe to end the trip, the feed to the AUX cable would switch to playing out of the phone speakers, very obnoxiously. Not once or twice, every time.

This supposed $40Bn company becomes more laughable to me every day.


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## SDUberdriver (Nov 11, 2014)

SoCalBrit said:


> I am an app developer. Like a serious one, apps for Fortune 100 companies serious. As a professional in this area I can categorically tell you what you already know. That Uber's driver app for iPhone is a steaming pile of turd, that they seem to shove out the door at the end of every week, and force you to update to before you can go online.
> 
> I started driving in December, and back then the app would do this thing where whenever it went online, offline or a ping came in, Uber Driver would stop my music playing. I like to have my playlist going while driving for me and my riders. Uber apparently doesn't like this. Anyway in my head I would tell myself that Uber is a $40Bn operation and must have a crack team of developers that really know their stuff. I was wrong.
> 
> ...


_If you are a serious app developer as you say you are. Lets pool our 80% we receive as drivers ,and build an app with a tip button._


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## SoCalBrit (Jan 21, 2015)

SDUberdriver said:


> _If you are a serious app developer as you say you are. Lets pool our 80% we receive as drivers ,and build an app with a tip button._


The $10/hr I made for the 6 hours I worked last night, buys about 30 minutes of my time in the real world.

The sad reality is that adding the tip button would not pose any substantial technical challenge. All you need is an numerical text input box added to the rating screen. The tip amount gets sent along with the rating back to Uber. Then all you have to do is add a couple of lines of code to the bottom of the final fare calculation, in order to add the tip to the total. That's basically it.

A single developer could write, test and release that functionality within 2 days, possibly even 1 day. Now if, as I suspect, Uber's internal workings resemble the kind of stratospheric growth, hiring frenzy, contractors everywhere, heads up our own asses lunacy that I experienced in London during the dot com boom in the late ninety's, then you could extend that timeline by weeks or months. Add even more time if the codebase for Uber's app is a rats nest of spaghetti code, which is also possible. I know nothing of the internal goings on at Uber, this is just how I picture it based on my 15 years in tech.

I think it's more of a case of don't want to, rather than can't.


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## Long time Nyc cab driver (Dec 12, 2014)

SoCalBrit said:


> The $10/hr I made for the 6 hours I worked last night, buys about 30 minutes of my time in the real world.


Yet you're driving for Uber, lol.


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## SoCalBrit (Jan 21, 2015)

Clearly I'm not doing it for the money. At this point I don't think anyone is.


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## SDUberdriver (Nov 11, 2014)

SoCalBrit said:


> Clearly I'm not doing it for the money. At this point I don't think anyone is.


_Money what money? _


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## good4life (Oct 4, 2014)

So, in your world, you would stream and use navigation through the same phone, right? Did it not bother you that your turn by turn was being broadcast over your speakers? Did that interrupt your music?


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## SoCalBrit (Jan 21, 2015)

good4life said:


> So, in your world, you would stream and use navigation through the same phone, right? Did it not bother you that your turn by turn was being broadcast over your speakers? Did that interrupt your music?


On the iPhone the music volume lowers when the turn-by-turn is broadcast. I drive like that normally and the music is really just there for background anyway.

Friday night was the first time the turn-by-turn directions worked for me incidentally.


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## good4life (Oct 4, 2014)

Thanks for the validation. I have been using two phones (Android) and a Bluetooth headset. One phone is for Uber and actual calls/texts. This is the one I use with the headset so turn by turn, calls and texts will be silent to the customer. I use the second phone strictly as a music player to stream to the car audio without interruption.


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## Rakos (Sep 2, 2014)

SoCalBrit said:


> I am an app developer. Like a serious one, apps for Fortune 100 companies serious. As a professional in this area I can categorically tell you what you already know. That Uber's driver app for iPhone is a steaming pile of turd, that they seem to shove out the door at the end of every week, and force you to update to before you can go online.
> 
> I started driving in December, and back then the app would do this thing where whenever it went online, offline or a ping came in, Uber Driver would stop my music playing. I like to have my playlist going while driving for me and my riders. Uber apparently doesn't like this. Anyway in my head I would tell myself that Uber is a $40Bn operation and must have a crack team of developers that really know their stuff. I was wrong.
> 
> ...


*Bingo*...you had the nail pretty square on the head...sad to see it has devolved to the point it has...

I thought the same thing about the lack of legitimate driver input OR any type of QA on the app updates...

My experience in IT goes back over 40 years and sometimes it is scary to see what the new kids on the block call programming...

of course when your company (most do this) hire out to Indians or others that will do the job for slave wages what do you expect???

makes my little monkey brain hurt to think about it....8)


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## tradedate (Nov 30, 2015)

SoCalBrit said:


> The $10/hr I made for the 6 hours I worked last night, buys about 30 minutes of my time in the real world.
> 
> The sad reality is that adding the tip button would not pose any substantial technical challenge. All you need is an numerical text input box added to the rating screen. The tip amount gets sent along with the rating back to Uber. Then all you have to do is add a couple of lines of code to the bottom of the final fare calculation, in order to add the tip to the total. That's basically it.
> 
> ...


SDUberdriver meant to build a separate app with tips built in, as a competitor to Uber, like Lyft.


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