Re: Grabbing battery status could be useful for their customers and drivers
> If Uber knew beforehand that I was running out battery they could have warned the driver that I was not able to answer calls or reply text messages.
1. In software development we call that gold plating. That's adding features for the sake of features, without consideration of their cost¹/benefit ratio.
2. There will always be a user coming up with a "feature request" like that. I've seen shops that implement anything the users ask for. The software eventually becomes unusable and/or falls apart.
3. Can't you just specify an exact pick-up location?
4. Can't you add "delivery" (or in this case, pick-up) notes to your request? Actually talk to a human of some description?
5. There is always hailing a taxicab, or taking mass public transport (besides, walking, hitchhiking, carjacking, buying an automobile², ...)
¹ Cost implies more than purely monetary terms. An unwarranted privacy intrusion is a cost, as is using a soon-to-be-discontinued API, or even just adding complexity to your product.
² As people did when flights were grounded in Europe due to volcanic ash a few years back. The bloke from my regular car hire in Spain told me they had people pay up to €6,000.- for a one-way hire drop-off in England, that was after a 50% discount off the "computer says" price. At least two others (German and Dutch) walked into a nearby dealer and bought cars on the spot. Never underestimate people's resourcefulness.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
