It is an Interesting Ride – Cab Apps in Toronto

Wow, the Taxi Cab App business is booming.
First Uber with black cars, SUVs then Uber Taxi;
Then Beck Taxi launched their app;
and today Hailo – The Toronto Taxi App launched!

It’s getting busy in the space and pretty competitive too.

These apps are laser-targeted at me.  As I mentioned in  Intracity Transpo aka Getting Around Toronto in the Cab or Cab equivalent section, I’m a cab-addict from way back. You guys already know I love me some tech and playing around with new apps, UX and UI makes me happy.

The biggest complaint I’ve heard so far is that installing the apps – Uber and Hailo – require you to enter a credit card.  Now that is part of the service: being able to get in and get out without having to coordinate payment.  But it’s a reasonable barrier for many to even install the app to try the services out.

I bit the bullet (and used a very very low limit card that I reserve for just this kind of thing).

Uber

I’ve used Uber a number of times for black car (aka limo-style rides) and taken advantage of their free rides on their taxi service all this week.  (but you have to book under “Taxi” not “black” or “SUV”)  Both times I was picked up in a Diamond Cab – clean, polite, efficient.  But fair warning, when things are busy, there aren’t always Taxis available, and the interface will tell you that and switch you to “Black”, which can get messy as I found last night at 6:45pm trying to get a big pile of gear home from the office.

I haven’t tried Beck’s app yet, mainly because it’s iPhone only and I lean Android.

Hailo

Hailo launched just today in Toronto and I’ve already installed the app, loaded my first promo code: TORONTO. That’s $5 off my first ride and now I’m trying to figure out how to use it immediately even though I don’t need to go anywhere and I do have my bike with me.  (I mentioned I’m a cab-addict right?)

So we’ll just see who wins my heart.