[usrusr]

GP was talking about the initial setup of a ride, the app of your uber/lyft driver will already have your destination. The conventional taxi GPS won't. The app backend takes care of the cumbersome rider to driver to GPS dataflow.

Still, as a cyclist, I'd rather have lane blocking than drivers fiddling with their apps while driving.

[kbart]

"the app of your uber/lyft driver will already have your destination."

So does modern taxis. It's strange that when topic comes to taxis vs Uber/Lyft here, it looks like taxis in US are very archaic. I live in Europe and taxis started using apps/GPS/SMS/time and price approximation etc. long before Uber, is it so different in other parts of the world?

[ergothus]

My (US) last taxi ride was 3 years ago and it had GPS the driver didn't want to use and no price estimation. The big deal was that it now had a device where I could slide my card instead of the driver doing so.

4 years ago was the last time I called for a taxi. Took 20 minutes to get it (lyft takes 3 min in the same time of day), and the first taxi company didn't service my area (but did cover the opposite side of the street I later discovered).

So yeah, archaic.

[andromeduck]

I think it existed but just wasn't very good. The tipping culture and cabbie nagging here also kind of defeats most of the value from those estimates.

[rockinghigh]

Which country in Europe had a taxi app before Uber?