Successful in what regard? Financially? artistically? It was completed? A critical internet community criticized it? Successful is a very broad term. You may be correct, i just have no way to prove you are
Meh, it looks good to me. It still says Uber underneath the icon. It took me a couple more seconds of confused scanning the first time I went to order a cab after the redesign, but that's not too bad. And the logo looks more mainstream, less like some elite chauffeur service, which is good. I don't really see any problem. And this article doesn't ever really give much aesthetic critique. It's just a weird, bitter hit piece about someone else's imagined motives.
Im left to question what ubers motive was. No use of a U. Not simular to any logo in the past. Logo easily can be confused with other applications. I dont think uber had ill will but I dont think they thought this through aside from "rebrand time". Really, this article just says what many people are thinking
Not sure the lack of a U is a big deal. You may be right they just thought "rebrand time", and that would be a shame. I'm a designer. I love good design and good reasoning. In this case, I see a new brand identity that looks OK to me, nothing special, but not completely thoughtless either. Could have gone a lot worse. Subjective.
Whatever. My reason for commenting originally was that I find this kind of blog rant ugly. Real passion for design usually manifests in articles about things the author liked. Negative critique is ok, but it needs to be calm and measured and make interesting points about the design itself. This one basically just attacks people