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by ohiovr 1942 days ago
I'd take a sledge hammer to it. The app doesn't have to be an app at all. It could simply be a stream with an os interactive overlay that intercepts touches. Like a thin client for phones.
3 comments

A stream may also make it harder for the app to work in areas with poor connection. Which, given Uber's use case, is probably a likely scenario and one that could lose a lot of customers to competitors.
Pull it on first run and cache it. If you're in place with a poor internet connection, you aren't going to be able to download the app from app store any way. I am going to assume 80% of the code packaged in the app in the app is never used by a majority of their customer base. Like all the business features where a company give their employees allowances.
From some simple experiences with recording my desktop to a mp4 file I've found the delta compression to be extremely efficient when there is only a little motion. Perhaps still a deal killer, true.
That's called a web browser and a web app.

And then there wouldn't be anything to hog-up 1/3 of a GiB on every customer's phone, and it would always be up-to-date. Just don't ever lose internet access.

How do you expect to hail a taxi when you don't have internet access in the first place?

Does the app use SMS when the internet connection is lost?

Web apps can be cached and run entirely offline.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progressive_web_application#...

Especially getting lost in a cell dead zone.

Its not exactly a web app but it could be made that way with WebRTC.

That could trigger the App Store review block. But this is Uber, so I'm guessing there's special treatment :)
Interesting. I've not looked at the long rule list in a while.