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Tim Cook Threatened to Remove Uber From the App Store Over iPhone Tagging Tactics
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Have to agree with this. Over a very long time , taxi drivers globally have become complacent and in many places plain ripping tourists off. UBer all the way
You don't get passing Uber cars to stop by waving at them either. Where I come from you can just order a taxi with a single quick phone call and there's even an Uber-style app these days.
I'm pretty sure that Uber isn't any better at peak hours and you can order a taxi like you can order an Uber.
So what's the problem? Do you have a phobia of talking to someone?
I'm pretty sure most taxi drivers do exactly the same thing (take the route the GPS gives them), or at least they do where I come from.
However I have a feeling that this is probably going to nowhere and you're just going to be arguing against a straw man version of the taxi system the same way Uber themselves does. The reality is that Uber is a taxi company where the drivers aren't trained at all, where neither the cars or the company are registered as taxi companies, where they don't even bother with proper commercial vehicle insurance, where just about all of the expenses are rolled over to the driver and where the drivers are paid so little it barely covers gas, car maintenance and really basic living expenses.
So it's not just proper taxi drivers that get screwed over when they have to compete with a company that can operate much more cheaply by simply not following any of the regulations they have to follow or be put out of business, the company probably screws over their own drivers even more than that.
You may not see an issue in some Uber drivers making so little they have to live in their cars and like a Trump supporter you're probably start going on about how the drivers are just lazy and that Uber isn't meant to be anything beyond a second job to make ends me. I however will put my foot down and demand that either the people what provide me with products and services are paid a living wage or I take my business elsewhere.
Ditto.
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In London at least, none of that is correct. Uber drivers have to have PHV licensing and PHV inspected vehicles, as do all mini-cab drivers.
I guess it varies from authority to authority, so is it fair to blame Uber for taking the same advantage of local regulations as any other firm?
The UK has minicabs so they can get away with drivers that have barely any training. Minicabs are however a UK oddity and not a global thing.
Yes. Uber's standard business practice is to set up shop in a new city/country and then deal with compliance with laws there after the fact. I've never seen such a blatant disregard for business regulations in my life. Never once have I heard of a company simply insisting they have the intrinsic right to operate before getting approval from the appropriate governing body. They're involved in over 2,000 lawsuits worldwide right now for this exact process.
They can only do this because they don't require a physical presence.
Of course there would have been. Steve Jobs loved having meeting where he could yell and berate people who did wrong. Steve Jobs was not stupid and would not risk hurting apple by denying millions and millions of customers access to Uber unless they had an Android.
People love to say anything they disagree with that Steve would have done it differently, but thats far sighted. Jobs definitely would have had the meeting and simply would have yelled more loudly, but the end result would have been the same.
You do know that in a generation or two Black cabs will be looked upon like the horse and carriage, a quaint old novelty ride.
Driverless cars will kill such jobs
You're ignoring the fact that Uber made $2.8 billion losses in 2006. Uber isn't more efficient at all. Uber is just moving money from the pockets of investors into the pockets of the drivers.
yes, even though we don't quite agree with what uber is doing. but the uber driver aren't exactly part of it and we should continue to use their service as long as they maintain the service.
i never never taken a traditional taxi for more than a year. In Singapore, we have another competitor to Uber known as Grab. Grab is actually decently huge in Asia. And I believe that in Singapore, Grab has a larger market share than Uber. Recently many of our local taxi companies decided to work with Grab to provide flat fares.
Just 2 days ago, one of the taxi company is in talk to sell their entire business to Grab. Looks like the taxi company is falling apart from the competition. http://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/transport/smrt-in-talks-to-sell-taxi-business-to-grab
The only worrying is that if some of the taxi companies eventually had to exit the market, there is a high chance that Uber will turn bad if they have a monopoly.
I'm sure this is true for some taxi companies in some cities, but...
It's not true everywhere - where I live taxis are generally good to great, and other than cost there's no point in catching an Uber . Taxis ended up highly regulated for reasons - every rule that Uber flouts , is a cost to taxis is in part built up over a 100+ years of ride sharing experience and problems that occurred.
If Uber played by the same rules, I am not sure they would be cheaper.
The company (rather than the drivers) has demonstrated contempt for laws & regulations, contempt for its drivers and contempt for its users. The sooner they go out of business the better
Pretty obvious if you have a criminal mind. Don't rob people where the cops can see you, that's just obvious. The cleverness involved in this is approximately zero.
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Well, no. Uber would be bankrupt and forgotten. Apple would be doing just fine.
Actually, I think "identifierForVendor" does it mostly.
What's odd about the article is that access to the UDID was removed at least by iOS 7 in 2013 and maybe before. So by 2015 when this supposedly happened, was this only affecting non-upgraded devices?
At the front of the thread, it states the info comes from an NYT article published just yesterday:
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/23/...s-uber-and-himself-to-the-precipice.html?_r=0
Click the link and read it for more details. This is good practice for any forum's news posts, btw. Always check out the source material. Often important info can be distilled out.
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We don't know _exactly_ what Uber has done at some time in 2015. I would assume that it can't be done in more modern iOS versions anymore.
I am comparing Uber to a time when taxi companies didn't have a ride-hailing app, and the only way to book a taxi was to call their booking centre, which was severely understaffed. It would take forever to get through to an operator, even longer to be paired to a ride, and even then, success was far from assured. All while I stand by the roadside like a freaking moron and growing increasingly late for my appointment.
With Uber, I have a car right in front of me within minutes at the press of a button. It doesn't get any more streamlined than that.
Once, I needed to go to the airport at 4 am. A normal taxi cost me $50 after midnight surcharges.
The same uber ride today cost me under $20.
I have never had any issues getting an Uber to wherever I want to go, whenever I want. The same cannot be said for taxis.
No, but I see no reason to have to pay the extra booking fee simply because some errant driver decides to play punk.
It's precisely because these taxi drivers are blatantly trying to play punk with the system that I am all the more determined not to give in to them.
The majority of taxi drivers I have encountered are elderly folks who seem uncomfortable around technology. To their credit, they know their way around Singapore but when their knowledge of roads fails them, they are incapable of using GPS as a backup.
So what are you suggesting? That the taxi industry shouldn't evolve, and we customers should continue to get the shaft?
This is not a straw man argument. I speak entirely from experience, and I think countless people will agree with me when I say that the current system of calling for a ride via an app is cheaper, way more convenient and accessible than standing by the roadside and waiting for a taxi.
For one, I live in Singapore, and am not a US citizen. I didn't vote for Trump, nor could I have voted for him in any capacity anyways. I did predict that he would win the elections, however. I admit I find Trump an interesting character, and feel it's too early to write him off yet, but that's another discussion for another day.
Maybe uber drivers are untrained, but the reality is that I do find them more courteous than taxi drivers. Maybe it's also because of their relatively younger, age, but I also find they possess better driving skills. One uber driver even offered me a power bank to charge my phone in the car. Good luck finding a taxi driver who offers a similar service.
One perk for us Singaporeans is that uber drivers also get to rent a car they can use in their own spare time. Which is handy because the costs of owing a car in Singapore is prohibitively expensive. So for them, making ends meet is secondary to owning a car for personal use.
Uber has thoroughly upended the traditional taxi Industry in Singapore, and I couldn't be more grateful for it.
The losses came from subsidising rides.
I am referring to the utterly useless call-booking system that the taxi companies in my country had prior to Uber. If they had been willing to invest in a more effective solution, I might still have stuck with them out of loyalty, or at least be indifferent to switching, instead of jumping ship to Uber the instance it came to Singapore.
Of that I have no doubt. I have seen how crazy surge pricing can get at times. Uber needs competition to keep it honest, but in the end, ride-sharing is a winner-takes-all scenario where there can be only one.
But knowing Singapore's government, they will definitively step in to prevent such a scenario, especially when Temasek owns SMRT. PAP will never allow a foreign company like Uber to control such a critical aspect of Singapore's transport infrastructure.
Maybe, but in this case instead of doing shady business in a back alley they built a wall around the police office.
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Sure, but Apple will also suffer huge customer backlash for removing something that so many of iPhone users rely on daily. It would be a PR nightmare.
I really don't care.
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Apple CEO Tim Cook threatened to pull Uber's app from the App Store in early 2015 after discovering the ride-hailing company was secretly "fingerprinting" iPhones that used the app, it emerged on Sunday.
The claim appeared in a New York Times report profiling Uber's risk-taking chief executive Travis Kalanick, who was apparently summoned to Apple's campus for a face-to-face meeting with Cook over the app's behavior.
![tech-big-shots-like-tim-cook-travis-kalanick-and-elon-musk-gathered-last-night-at-new-yorks-hottest-fashion-show-800x400.jpg]()
Travis Kalanick (left) and Tim Cook at a 2016 fashion gala (Image: Reuters)
According to the report, Uber was trying to prevent fraudsters from creating multiple fake accounts on the same device to collect new account bonuses, but to do this it had been recording the UUID serial numbers of iPhones so that it could identify them even after the app had been deleted and the phone wiped.
Knowing that the approach was a clear violation of Apple's app privacy guidelines, Uber implemented the tactic regardless, and even went so far as to geofence Apple's Cupertino campus so that Apple engineers using the app wouldn't see its fingerprinting behavior.
However, the tactic didn't go unnoticed by Apple engineers for long. Soon after the discovery was made, Tim Cook had a meeting with Kalanick and demanded that Uber stop the fingerprinting immediately, otherwise the app would be removed from the App Store. Facing the loss of millions of iPhone customers which would essentially destroy the ride-hailing business, Mr. Kalanick acceded.
This isn't the first time reports have emerged over the Uber app's dubious-sounding behavior. Concerns were raised late last year when users complained that the app appeared to track them for days or even weeks after they last used the ride-hailing service, forcing an explanation from the company.
The New York Times article offers more detail on the Uber CEO's history of controversial business tactics and can be read here.
Article Link: Tim Cook Threatened to Remove Uber From the App Store Over iPhone Tagging Tactics
He was personally invited and given a talking to. Other developers recieve a formal email and a termination notice
Can't live without Uber. Its made everything so much easier
Apple Maps is using outdated data
I deleted Uber after the CEO basically trashed his employee in the car...
I use Lyft now when I need to and find the drivers nicer and experience better overall.
Competition is great.
I use Lyft now when I need to and find the drivers nicer and experience better overall.
Competition is great.