This person has made the common mistake of thinking "Uber for x" means "an app for finding x on a map."
OP: the innovation of Uber has nothing to do with their car-finder app. It has to do with the fact that they've figured out a way to compete with a huge established business that historically has required huge capital expenditures to build a fleet of cars, and they've done it by tapping a massively underutilized and very cheap resource: other people's idle cars. This is precisely why taxi companies can't respond just by building a great app for hailing a taxi.
OP: the innovation of Uber has nothing to do with their car-finder app. It has to do with the fact that they've figured out a way to compete with a huge established business that historically has required huge capital expenditures to build a fleet of cars, and they've done it by tapping a massively underutilized and very cheap resource: other people's idle cars. This is precisely why taxi companies can't respond just by building a great app for hailing a taxi.