Torontonians love to Uber — some 500,000 by the company’s count. But one complaint from the ride-hailing app’s users is the lack of a scheduling feature. TaxiLater, a new app for Apple devices, promises to solve the problem, letting you schedule your pick-up and drop-off locations — and when you want to leave. “I care when the ride arrives, not when it is called,” Joshua Meier, the 20-year-old Harvard sophomore who developed the app, told Metro. “That was the whole idea around it.” The app was published on the iTunes store on Monday — just one day before Toronto city council voted to regulate the ride-hailing service. Meier said he hopes to introduce a feature where users can select their desired arrival time and the app will figure out the rest. “I would rather have it all be seamless so I don’t have to deal with the stress of figuring out when to order the ride to get there in time," he said. Meier said download traffic is growing by the hour and he is receiving valuable feedback from users on how to improve the user interface for the next version.
A long-standing criticism of Uber has been that users are unable to pre-schedule rides, only able to book a car for as soon as possible. However, a new app is hoping to change that. TaxiLater has recently launched on the iTunes app store and lets riders pre-schedule pick-ups and drop-offs. The app, which was developed by an Australian startup called TaxiNow, allows passengers to reserve their own cars with a swipe or tap on the app.