Uber updates app so that customers can set destination to a person

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“It’s not just a normal update”, Uber CEO Travis Kalanick said in a press conference, CNET reports. Along with the major redesign, the application has been improved with additional features.

The new Uber app opens to a page that asks “Where to?”.

The all-too-familiar user interface for those of you who are ardent users of Uber to get yourself from one corner of Singapore to another. It also includes information on the arrival times.

Over the years, Uber’s home screen became stuffed with new features that had the potential to confuse users. Asking users’ destinations first serves two purposes, Uber said.

For now, the app won’t automatically hail your vehicle unless you schedule the ride, but the possibilities are interesting.

After a slew of alleged sexual assaults by Uber drivers, some women and lawmakers have called on Uber to add more safety features to its app, like a panic button. For example, the new Uber app is now capable to learn from a user’s routine. Passengers often don’t correct those locations, causing drivers to go to the wrong pick-up spot, it said.

Kalanick said these new features are meant to streamline the pick-up process, typically the most fraught part of the Uber experience. “Uber has a maybe more unique business model”. We want to take the most valuable resource that we have and give it back to people. You’ll be able to read Yelp reviews of restaurants close to your destination, send a Snapchat with a unique Uber filter or identify songs on Pandora – directly within the Uber app.

The ride hailing company began rolling out a redesigned version of its main app Wednesday. Surely it’s be better than those displays blaring ads in taxis.

The changes are created to engage riders while they are travelling and also to speed up and streamline the process of ordering a ride. The study found that, in Seattle, black passengers waited as much as 35% longer for a confirmed ride than white passengers; and, in Boston, riders with “African American-sounding names” experienced twice as many cancellations by drivers than people with “white sounding names”.

Meanwhile, Uber’s top executives at its USA headquarters have said they will visit Taiwan to discuss ways of solving the problem. These aren’t just generic calculations of 45-50 minutes though.

The company is also integrating with a number of other apps that will make getting to your next location much more seamless. “Being predictive and personalized in how you experience Uber is really important”. For the last several months, it included a colored pattern in the background, part of the new logo and branding design the company introduced in February.

Welcome to the “Uber feed“. Since Uber also knows how long a passenger will be in the auto, it could also show its captive audience movie trailers if they’re headed to a theater.

Riders will also be able to choose another person’s location as a destination. In Singapore, people take Uber across the country easily. “We wanted to get into an experience where we could personalise the app”, said Mr Kalanick.