technically a parallel post. for now this is stream of throat it was mostly written via voice to text so there’s lots of errors but it’s up here for comment I. and RFC. parallel because I will be pulling sections out I will create a post that is a bullet point checklist chart and then these long sections will be a post of their own linked to from that chart
Lyft is way too flatp maybe that’s cuz I have night mode turned on but that doesn’t mean much there’s plenty ways you could make night mode still high contrast enough
Lyft, I love that you integrate with Waze so well, but there are some random times you’re pulling it back to your app and erasing the ways directions and I start all over which is a pain because your navigation buttons freak out at least half the time and not because I’m driving you really need to improve that so it’s a one tap return after all I’m trying to drive not touch my f****** phone.
your navigation buttons don’t work half the time, and I sometimes think it might be because you don’t want us touching our device but the tablet still lets me touch it the thing still isn’t work if I’m stopped for 20 or 30 seconds playing around the phone trying to get it to work and then I’m like f*** it I’ll pick up my phone while I’m stopped and you’re not give me a warning not to touch my phone so I’m touching my phone and having to manually enter the address we’re trying to get to That’s not good customer service to me or the writer r i d e r
like I said I don’t know if it’s a Don’t touch your phone kind of thing because that’s what I’m not moving. and yet when I am moving and I touch the navigation button you automatically take me back to my navigation app versus the three different buttons I’m trying to push otherwise navigation talk open top take me there then bottom button which is low contrast and small so it takes me longer to find and click then I can navigate so yeah that’s a 50/50 when that happens it’s to whether you take me straight to navigation or whether I have to stop because you’re making me go through four clicks
it’s like come on you don’t want me to touch my phone
which brings me to touching my phone You’re like don’t touch your phone stop moving put down your phone yeah I’m not touching my phone it’s sitting in its holster not even touching it
lift something I totally totally totally hate is that your arrive button doesn’t automatically get clicked
Lyft needs a better dark mode/night theme
from bigger one-way arrows higher contrast which can be done in dark mode you don’t need 80% and 100% black you can do 60% and 80% and 100% black weight
One of my favorite things with Lyft is did it highlights the actual building the person’s coming from not just putting a pin somewhere, now that’s 100% accurate there’s a few times that it has lit the building next door and supposedly that was when the rider actually typed in the address for the building they were in which brings me to the map issue
Lyft allows me to Mark things on the map most of which are hazards one’s a closure, but none of them are to fix an error on the map and that’s a big issue supposedly Uber does too at least for the errors but a significant number of times that error is something you have to go into from their website and a severe pain and hard to link it to a ride which also makes ratings in that ride hard to justify because yeah
Lyft does a better job with displaying Ride info when you’re going to accept it the total for the ride is a lot clearer, but what I don’t like is I don’t know how much wait time they’re expecting and are they including that 19 to $30 per hour as wait time too, cuz that would be a very nice thing is to say typical weight for this writer is x minutes then I know they’re probably including wait time in that calculation because they’re displaying that time in the menu
one big thing that both Uber and Lyft need is A slow start option. you see if it’s slow out or if I need a break I don’t need to be offline I just need them to know hey it’s going to be an extra 2 minutes for me to get to this writer then if you just gave you a flat out ping. if I’m pissing or if I’m buying something I’m able to start taking calls but I might not be running out immediately I’m checking out I’m paying that doesn’t take 5 minutes that takes one maybe two minutes but if the next nearest rider is 4 minutes away I’m still the best driver to do the pickup not much different than if I’m meandering around to drop off the previous passenger you do the same thing you say hey this guy is going to be in your neighborhood we’ll send you to them but they’re going to be another 8 minutes cuz they’re dropping another person off no for that scenario you’re typically showing where that driver’s driving to and telling them they’re driving dropping off another passenger kind of interesting that you’re actually doing that versus just saying hey they’re dropping someone off because this is showing them exactly where this person is but hey
does Uber and Lyft are horrible about horizontal viewing they try and force you vertical but my maps are all horizontal and less than 20% of the time is it better to be vertical same thing in reverse if it’s vertical less than 20% of the time is it better to be horizontal so that means 60% time it doesn’t matter. so Uber and Lyft give me a horizontal option that works for you guys I can force it on my tablet by using a split screen so you can do it but your format tends to suck. Lyft it shows me the top menu it shows me the bottom menu but when you ping something I can’t see the new ride request I have to go look at my phone and even pick it up because it’s so tiny you can’t read it
let’s talk destination mode
list destination mode appears to work well Ubers does not let’s dissect that to see if it’s by design or what they say it’s they made improvements but they never fixed what was broken just added features which don’t matter since it’s still appears broken
okay let’s begin Uber continuously pings you with loud radar alerts saying here’s a ride here’s a ride here’s a ride none of those into my destination and you’re harassing me creating a hostile work environment with that harassment as you suggest I go on these rides I’m ready to just turn off due to the obnoxious noise that you’re creating
now once again Uber The never actually start to send you to your destination. it’s like okay that ride is taking me way out of the way is that with them knowing they’re going to send me that direction or not because that no point have they ever said okay we’ve done your thing you need to be headed that way because it’s silently switches hostile work environment silent switch to giving you random calls anywhere in town if I’m 15 minutes from my destination it’s not always obvious until I’m on a call and I’m like this drop off is after the time when I’m already supposed to be at my destination. it is obvious also when I’m going home and I’m four blocks from home and you start giving me six things lowering my acceptance rating hostile environment because you’re taking away perks because of a low acceptance rating and since you’re giving me so many pings I cannot turn off unless I accept one turn off and then cancel it once again hasta out work environment
now Lyft is nice they give me a an oval or a fan shape for getting towards my destination I guess that was one of the improvements of Uber made but doesn’t work. and lift will still give you the ” uber’s radar thing but they just list stuff on the map no annoying pings nothing just hey that side of your range are you sure you want to take it. now I don’t know how they do at the end because I manually turned off after a ride that took me close to my home
now Uber versus Lyft surges Uber at least gives me the same surge no matter what vehicle I’m driving cuz honestly it shouldn’t matter I’m a driver on the road whereas Lyft if I go to XL only they take away any option for surges if x irregular lift is surging. at that point I might as well turn off
which brings me to my next point of on a call lockdown Lyft takes away all options and I don’t think it’s because we’re trying to focus you on driving because I might as well cancel on a ride if me sitting at a dead stop trying to leave a parking lot to go to see your client I cannot change from regular lift to super large lift to destination mode I’m sorry you just took me an hour to the opposite side of town I want to turn on destination mode
Uber Uber still lets you have all those features because you’re only on a call on your phone. but a lot of those features are still available on the phone technically it’s just means you’d have to go behind the drive but it’s great cuz on your tablet these things take up two by two or three by three inch buttons so it’s like an automatic car mode
yeah Uber sucks at some of these car mode features pretty much everything on Uber is bigger and easier to read so if I’m stopped pulled over before I go anything I can quickly navigate bigger higher contrast all these things lift just like actually sit there and read through things you got to search for things maybe it’s cuz I’m not as familiar with it but size is definitely there anyway with Uber I can turn on and off ride types without even looking at the tablet they’re so big so list solution is let’s lock it down and either not show them or say hey you’re supposed to be driving I’m in a dead stop and I’m at a dead stop longer because I can manually type this into things like a bat. Yes set a clicking a map button You’ve locked it down well actually haven’t locked it down cuz the map button still works on the tablet and has something that works on the phone when I’m actually driving driving. but you’re forced me to stay stop longer as I manually type out an address because your navigate button is broken. Uber has similar issues but there I close the app reopen the app and now they navigation button works again
more or destination mode issues with Uber if you say you want to get closer to that destination they are hostile in their attempt to get you there closer means one block closer even if it takes you an hour to do that one block you might not make it to your destination within 12 hours. and that hostility carries over to their no long pickup fees on destinations. that makes sense if you’re actually getting someone there because hey we’re going to give you a 20 minute pick up but instead of giving you that 5 minute pick up you’re forcing us to give you something towards that destination so yes we could have offered you a 5-minute ride and pay you quicker. if they’re going to call it a legitimate destination service especially if they’re not going to pay you for long pickups your pickup time should be at least the distance closer you are so if it takes you 10 minutes to get somewhere to pick someone up you should be at least 10 minutes closer to your destination. not one block. you shouldn’t make it halfway to your destination then come back to where you were initially at and on that same token you shouldn’t be going 10 minutes away from your destination only to come 10 minutes 11 minutes back so you’re you’re one minute closer yeah no
now continuing on to the destination like feature, we have zone regions or whatever you want to call it on Uber they have like six zones in my city and that is over a 90 mi range I’m thinking. yep give or take from the southern edge to the far northern edge of our zones I measured about 85 mi That’s not exact it is probably about 90 but yeah anyway whereas on Lyft you can put a pinprick and say a mile radius which is better I don’t know. having a square blocks kind of makes sense when the city is made up on square counties and blocks and roads but a spherical circle that you can actually set your own center point of is also nice.
however, the issue with both is you have to be in the center not the center you have to be within that zone to limit calls within that zone. I understand maybe they don’t want it to be a pseudo destination mode but on lift I think it uses a destination on Uber it doesn’t but would you rather me turn off and/or cancel a ride just so I can enable my zone. Ubers is really really weird because half the time it seems to automatically turn on when you’re touching the zones to see think about which one you want and then you can’t turn it off unless you go offline and don’t get any calls once you’re out of all the calls then you can adjust it lift doesn’t let you adjust it as far as I know I’m guess you could totally cancel it if you go offline but I think lifts count against your two or three destinations they both have a time limit Uber lets you to use it for 2 hours a day and lift let’s use it for 3 hours a day
no I just used lifts arrived by destination feature and once you get close to your destination it says low match possibilities adjust your filters or room filter so it appears to be working My arrival time is an hour and 40 minutes from now and it is still giving me pings that are not towards my destination which is fine because I set a time. we’ll see how firm it works on that time and see if it cancels this destination or puts me offline or just stops giving me calls
another thing Uber is fairly horrible about is points towards your next tier of driving. Gold platinum silver all that stuff Uber bases it off of ride being a point they sometimes will do two points as a part of like a promotion hey between 8:00 p.m. and 9:00 p.m. tonight earn double points, whereas Lyft bases it on I think the price not the distance but price and that’s a little bit better. The issue with Uber’s is what incentive do I have to go spend an hour on a ride if I’m only getting one point that means people that are out in the suburbs are not an incentive to pick up or drop off. Yes I know some people prefer long rides and some short rides but your harming people that do prefer the long rides and you discouraging people who already prefer short rides from doing long rides so a negative negative for riders looking to have happy drivers come get them
safety and security first and foremost lift at least suggest people add their photos to their account so drivers can see who they’re picking up. it’s not a requirement same thing with real names I get ZZ top I get God I get cool guy etc.
now it is nice that they’ve been a bit more prominent about how to select a guest and/or the writers are getting more used to looking for that feature versus just voiding ordering a ride for their friend Joe gassed of Mike of course if they could link Joe’s phone number from there contacts to Joe’s account that would also be nice if Joe even has an account or if he had one band v a n n e d.. not only does it mean you know who’s getting a ride you also know who’s account it is, but like I said I don’t think they’re double-checking to see if that person was banned from Uber. or Lyft and I’m less familiar with lifts guest things but I know that on Uber it’s also nice because they get a link so they can view the ride coming to get them and it links their phone number so that if I call someone I’m calling the actual rider and not relaying through some random third party okay not random but the guy that ordered it
but The verified feature is nice but if you just ask for their ID then you can still run a verified check to make sure it wasn’t a fake ID or something but safety is a low priority because not only are they not required to verify their identity there can use a fake name it just won’t show verified so yes require a picture and require an ID That’s the two big features that we’re requesting as drivers of passengers or at least the account holders and at least a picture of the rider even if they aren’t the account holder like I said you can link their phone number to something. and yes a photo should be of the person not a duck or a cartoon