UBER: A NECESSITY IN THE NEW WORLD

Uber has transformed world. They revolutionized the way a person orders a taxi and also introduced us to ride sharing. But all this involved a lot of research and hard work. Which makes me curious that what kind of technology do they use to make their app so seamless?

But before answering this question I had to take a look at Uber’s history, how they became known to the world.

In 2008 Uber’s founder in a Tech Conference announced that he would create an application that would help the world in tackling a major problem i.e. booking cabs and after just 2 years in 2010 Uber was created and launched in San Francisco. In 6 Months, they had 6000 users and around 20000 rides, this was mainly because Uber focuses on attracting both drivers as well as riders simultaneously which was a great marketing strategy.

Earlier days of marketing Uber used to promote their application by word of mouth, hosting and sponsoring tech events also giving each new rider a free first ride. Nowadays, also uber provides 50% off to every new user on their first ride. All this allows them to turn these users into permanent riders. As more and more people started joining Uber it became popular as people started posting on Social Media.

Now answering the question that I had earlier, what makes uber what it is?

Uber’s founders relied heavily on the 6 Key Technology based on iOS and Android geolocation. What really made it unique was to map and track all the taxis in the given area. There were other unique features as well like: 

  1.    Registering/Login features: Uber allows its user to create an account using their first name, last name, phone number, email id, preferred language and preferred payment option. Uber allows you to make cashless payments where you card is automatically charged with the amount once the trip has been finished.

   2.    Booking Features: Uber allows the driver to accept and reject the ride requests and get information on the current location and the desired location of the customer.

   3.    The ability to recognise a devices location: Uber via Core Location Framework allows the app to pin point the geographical location and orientation of a device to schedule location and delivery. Understanding iOS and Android geological features is crucial for this step, because that’s what this app is running on.

   4.    Point to point directions: Uber provides point to point directions to the destination to the driver. Uber uses MapKit for iOS and Google Maps Android API on Android to calculate the distance and time to the destination and instead of creating their own map they integrated an already established mapping system i.e. Google Maps.

   5.    Price Calculator: Uber offers cashless payment method where the user is charged directly from their credit card once the trip has been completed. Uber keeps 25% of whatever the driver makes as profit.

   6.    Notifications and SMS: Uber keeps the rider constantly updated regarding the status of their ride.

FOR EXAMPLE:

·      Driver has accepted your ride

·      Driver is arriving soon to your location

·      Driver has arrived at your location

Since its launch Uber has seen a lot of growth and has added other payment options along with a lot of features like when Uber came to India they added Cash payment as most of the people in India prefer cash payment instead of card payment, they also added mobile wallet features where the user could use Paytm, Google Play or any other mobile wallets for payments. They have also introduced pool rides that allow travel at a cheaper price but at the cost of sharing the cab with other people. Uber has also provided a lot of competition to other cab services like Meru Cabs or Easy Cabs here in India as Uber offers significantly lower prices than it's competitors.

THANK YOU
READ MORE HERE:
ELON MUSK: ONE OF THE MOST SUCCESSFUL ENTREPRENEURS OF THE WORLD: https://bit.ly/2JNTqJZ