You can no longer hail a cab with the Uber Apple Watch app
You can no longer request a cab with Uber from your Apple Watch. The popular app has been pulled from the App Store. No reasons were given for the decision.
The San Fransisco-based cab aggregator is the latest company to bail on the Apple Watch. The company has quietly shut down its app and will no longer support it. Those with Android watches are not much better off. Uber ended support for its WearOS app around two years ago
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Interestingly, the preview page of the Uber app is still on the App Store but the actual download link does not allow you to install the software. On its Uber Help page, the company says the following.
We no longer support the Apple Watch app. Please use the Uber mobile app to request rides. We’re sorry for any inconvenience.
Hailing a cab with the smartphone Uber app is quite easy. But the Apple Watch app made this process even quicker – a nice, convenient extension of the smartphone app. All users had to do was open the app on the watch and tap Request a Ride.
The Apple Watch piggy backs on the smartphone cellular connection to pull the driver’s vehicle information, estimated arrival time, and real-time location of the vehicle on a map. Uber uses the default payment method that you’ve set up to pay for the ride. Those with a cellularly enabled Apple Watch didn’t even need to have their smartphone around.
Uber has not give any reason for the decision to pull the app. Maybe few people were using the software, instead preferring to use an iPhone or an Android device. But even if you did use the more fully featured standard mobile app, the Apple Watch app was convenient. For example you could check how soon the car will arrive without having to take your phone out, or check the estimated time of arrival of the ride on your wrist while in the cab.
Also, once an app is created, presumably it doesn’t require too much work to maintain it. So in that sense it is odd to decide to kill it instead of just letting it live in its current form. Perhaps Uber is making changes at the backend, which would require a total software rewrite of the app so it did not want to commit resources. Or maybe the app was glitchy. There are reports of users having problems using the Apple Watch app.
People were very excited about fully featured smartwatches that could do much more than a Fitbit-like device. A mini-computer on your wrist! That was seen to be the future. Much better than a plain old fitness tracker.
But here we are in 2022 and it turns out….that’s not actually the case. Most people use the Apple Watch for health and exercise stuff and rarely tap into the other functionality. Guess what – there’s only so long a person can hold their arm up before it starts to get tired!
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