How to develop an app like Uber

Imagine that today is the day when you finally have decided to create a taxi booking application for your business. You have to think well before you start. Are you ready to work hard? Launching an app like Uber is a long process of developing and you need to know more than just the development model and technologies. So, before hiring a development team you have to explore the ride-sharing market.
Today people prefer to ride somewhere by taxi rather than a personal car. The main reasons for that are traffic and problems with a parking space. Nowadays it is more comfortable to explore the city by taxi.
That means, it is a really great idea to develop an application like Uber, especially if you want to launch your business in a big city, but you should be ready to spend considerable time and effort.

Since the time when Uber was launched in 2013 it has become a very popular application. People use it in more than 80 countries. Hundreds of drivers can connect with thousands of riders every minute. GPS helps them to find each other anywhere in real-time in the city. You don’t need to look for drivers or passengers around the street like it was before Uber. The app captured a big part of the market also because of the user-friendly interface and easy navigation.

How does the Uber app work?

If you’ve decided to build an app like Uber for your company, before you find and hire the best software development company, you should know how that app works. Of course, your team will explain all details but some basic information better to know before you start. So, let us tell you how Uber works:

• First of all you need to instal the app and next what you are going to do is send a request to find the nearest driver. The driver will see the details of your location when the request is received.
• The driver or a client can decline the request. But don’t worry, if the driver declines your request, it will automatically be passed to another nearest driver till you find the right match.
• When your location is sent to the driver, the driver can see what's the approximate time of arriving.
• Before you confirm a request with your Uber, the app will show you the cost and estimated time of arriving. So you will know how much money and time you need to spend. Also, you can choose the way of payment: cash or cashless payment.
• After the ride, the client can rate the driver. This helps the app to select the best drivers for customers.

These are easy steps of work for your future Uber-like app you need to know, before you find the right mobile app developers team.

What necessary features your Uber-like app needs?

• The main success feature that makes Uber so popular is geolocation, so your app will be based on GPS systems.
• The next important thing is secured and cashless payments.
• If you want to build a taxi app two important features are customer registration and profiles. It helps the app to track the user base.
• Application notifications help you to keep your customers informed.
• Uber-like app should also have a privilege to book a ride beforehand, in case a customer wants to take a trip somewhere for the weekend.
• UI/UX design. User-friendly interfaces help your app to get new customers.
• Cancellation of ride in 2 minutes without fees.

What are the best technologies to build an app for Android/iOS?

It’s really difficult to decide which framework will be the best for your app. Everything depends on your expectations and budget. Someone says that it should be two separate native applications for iOS and Android, someone prefers hybrid development.
We think that a better way is to find the right development team and discuss what exactly you want to achieve. When you explain ideas, the team could give you advice on how to realize it and which technology is better for the application.
Based on our Uber-like development experience we prefer to build applications with React Native. It is a framework for hybrid development that allows you to launch your app in iOS and Android. Developing with React Native will save your time and money if you want to build a cross-platform application.
Anyway, when you start building an app like Uber you should know that process can take a long time. But with the good software development team the result will be great!