Taxi Me

A look into TaxiMe v2 for the iPhone

jordan — Mon, 14 Jun 2010 22:50:39 +0000

Thanks to all that have downloaded the TaxiMe iPhone App. To all that haven’t, get on it – it’s only $0.99! I’ve been getting good feedback on the app and some have made suggestions on things to improve. So here is what’s planned in the next release:

Browse a list of cab contacts in your city
Flick through various cab contacts upon a successful estimation
Use/import addresses from your address book
Minor improvements. i.e. if we can’t find a rate for your city, the app will tell you

These are relatively small improvements but will make a big difference when estimating. If you have any suggestions or thoughts about these features, well, that’s what the comments are for

New city added: Minneapolis

jordan — Wed, 26 May 2010 16:39:48 +0000

We’ve just added Minneapolis as a supported city for getting Taxi estimations. Check it out at http://minneapolis.taxime.ca

iPhone App Released!

jordan — Mon, 10 May 2010 18:31:48 +0000

It was ever-so satisfying to write the title of this post. The TaxiMe iPhone app has been released! Read more about it at www.taxime.ca/iphone

iPhone app progress

jordan — Sat, 17 Apr 2010 22:39:32 +0000

I thought I’d update you all on something I’ve been keeping a little bit of a secret – I’m building an iPhone app for TaxiMe. Now, I’ve been developing it for about a month and a half now and it’s nearing completion. Here are a few features you can look forward to in the app:

Favorites: You can add/edit/remove favorite locations and then easily select them from a list when doing your estimation.
Recent: The app will keep track of recent estimations so you can always go back and view where you were going, how much it cost and how long it was going to take.
Modify Rates: Just like the website, the user will be able to alter the rates if they feel ours are out of date (pfftt we never are )
Google Maps integration: Just like the website, you will be able to launch a Google Map to show your starting point and destination. When you type in something like “McDonalds”, you will get a list of possible locations in your city, you will also have the option to view a Google Map of all possible locations.
Geo Aware: Since the iPhone has GPS, you will only have to type in your address – no more having to type “123 Fake St, New York, NY”. Just type in “123 Fake St” and you’re city will be automatically detected. This is the same with business searches, you can just search “Burger King”.

Those are the main features you can look forward to. I’ve got a few people testing it right now, so assuming all is well after that, I expect to have it launched end of April/early May. It will probably price around $1.99.

In the mean time, here are a few screenshots of the app in use.

Now geo-aware

jordan — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 22:13:16 +0000

After resolving some small issues with TaxiMe the other day, I decided to give the mobile version a slicker look – something more suited for iPhone/Blackberry/Android users. The mobile version still works with any mobile device, the look is just tailored more-so to those devices.

I decided it was time to give mobile users the ability to have TaxiMe detect their location and use that as a starting point. If the web browser on your mobile devices is geo-compatible, you will see a button that says “Use your current location as your start address”. Simply press that button and the “From” field will be populated with your latitude/longitude co-ordinates. Now you just have to fill out where you’re going!

This feature is also available on desktop browsers that support HTML5′s navigation.geolocation. For example, if you’re in Firefox 3.6 and you go to the www.taxime.ca homepage, you will see the same button that will allow you to use your current address as a starting point. Spread the good news!

Mentioned on CBC Radio Ottawa… again!

jordan — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 16:43:53 +0000

I was checking Twitter this morning and to my surprise, a few of my friends had told me that they heard taxime.ca on CBC radio this morning. That’s good news! Free advertising is always good. I’d like to thank Jith Paul for mentioning it – I’m glad you find it useful Jith! Not long after the interview Jith had sent me a link to CBC.ca where I could download the interview on CBC’s website or Mac users can download an mp3 version here.

Tampa added!

jordan — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 08:51:47 +0000

It’s been awhile since the last update so I thought I would barge in here and make one. Tampa (Florida) is now a supported city! So if you’re doing an estimation for Tampa, you can skip entering the city and state if you use http://tampa.taxime.ca/.

For those who don’t know, I’m living in France with my girlfriend for a few months and we are blogging about our adventures at http://www.wheninfrance.ca/. I’ve been pretty tied up in client work here but a taxime redesign is on my to-do list. I can’t say that it will be anytime soon but it’s on the list! The iPhone app is also on hold for now.

Enhanced mobile experience

jordan — Sat, 16 May 2009 19:41:37 +0000

We’ve been spending quite some time on building our new REST API. Along with coming close to finishing that, meant that we could redo the mobile version using it. Instead of the mobile view just throwing an error when it can’t find a location, it will attempt to provide suggestions like the TaxiMe homepage.

The mobile version now gives a cab contact upon a successful estimation! HOORAY!
Since we’ve added a significant amount of features to the generic mobile version and are working on an iPhone app, we’ve decided to take down the iPhone layout on the website.
Check back to read about our progress on the iPhone app!

Featured all over

jordan — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 18:54:50 +0000

Thank you everyone for the enormous amount of support you’ve given us throughout our rapid growth. We’ve recently been featured in the following design galleries: CSS Mania, CSS Design Yorkshire, Most Inspired, Best CSS Gallery, Stumbleupon, CSS Cookie, CSS Impress and many others.

Some people have been blogging about us at: Addictive Tips, Startup Meme, Killer Startups, Ottawa Blogspot, New York City Events, Ace Startups, Colorado Springs Newspaper, Startup Ottawa and many others.

We’ve also added a few more cities since the last post, http://santarosa.taxime.ca/ and http://denver.taxime.ca/

Search by business!

jordan — Sun, 22 Mar 2009 16:37:19 +0000

We’ve just finished making TaxiMe a little smarter. Now if you’re unsure of the address of the place you’re trying to get to but you know the name, go ahead and type that in.

Example: “Quiznos Ottawa” or “Burger King Vancouver”. TaxiMe will then show a list of 4 possibile addresses. At the moment Google only lets you show the first 4 but we are working on ways around this.

Unfortunately, the searching by business only works on the website and the iPhone. We will have it working for generic mobiles shortly.

A bug has also been squashed (previous post). Now, this only occured on some addresses but if you searched “90 Queen St, Ottawa”, TaxiMe would give a “Did you mean” prompt with a list of the same addresses below. Once you clicked on it, it would just loop and ask you the same question. The problem is that Google sees 4 possibilities for “90 Queen St” in the Ottawa area so you need to go a little more in depth with which one you want. The fix: if you click on one, you will now see that the input has been populated with latitude/longitude co-ordinates. This seems to work.