Uber virgin deflowered

I like to know what I’m doing. Some may say this borders on the OCD spectrum. Others will agree with me, and know that planning is the key to happiness, and minimising life’s surprises is a worthy goal. So when it comes to getting taxis to catch planes or be picked up from airports, the knowledge that it’s booked, that the company you’ve chosen will arrive on time, is priceless and is critical in smoothing all journeys.

I’d heard lot about Uber, but the thought of arriving at the airport without a confirmed taxi reservation home, without knowing that you’ll see that Addison-Lee board with your name on it, makes me break out in a cold sweat of uncertainty. There is nothing worse than the feeling of not knowing, the gut clenching fear as you head towards the unknown.

And that’s the way I felt on my flight back from Milan to Heathrow Terminal 5. I’d used my normal Addison-Lee service on the way out to Heathrow, but was dithering about trying Uber on the way back. Don’t worry, said my son – an avid Uber user –  just get out of immigration and customs, fire up the app and choose the level of service you want. Simple.

I cleared immigration, exited to the arrivals hall in Terminal 5, whipped out my iPhone 5 (encased in the Morphie battery pack, in true OCD style I had to make sure I had enough juice for the journey) and got the Uber app running. I chose the “Exec” option as I don’t like the Toyota Prius, but that’s another story. Uber told me that I had a driver ready in 3 minutes. I had his name, make of car and registration number. A few seconds after that, I got a call from the driver asking where I was. Within minutes, I was safely mounted in the passenger seat of a very smooth and very comfortable Mercedes, heading home. Brilliant, it worked. As soon as I got to my destination, up popped an email telling me how much I’d spent, and how long the journey took.

The journey home was as instructive as the booking experience. I learned that Uber takes 20% of the fare, that my fare was a fixed price, and most importantly that the driver was very happy working with such a “professional company” as he called it.

What I know is that Uber worked, brilliantly, and at a price far less than I normally pay for the same service. I don’t think black cabs are being that affected in London, but Addison-Lee and the mini-cab trade in general… be afraid. The pundits are right. Uber is a game-changer.

The iPhone 6 cometh…

The new iPhone 6 is soon to be upon us, and maybe this time I will upgrade. I resisted the urge to go to the new iPhone from my 5 last time around as I struggled with rationalising the benefits, such as a faster processor, fingerprint recognition and … ?, but maybe it’s different this time. Why? because I’ll probably be saying goodbye to all my iPads. Why? because if – as rumoured – the iPhone 6 has that glorious big display, then I will have reached a goal I searched for during the brief period I was in love my HTC One. Phone, pictures, internet and sat nav, all in one device, and a screen size just right for everything on the move. It’s amazing what a difference that extra inch of screen real estate makes. So much so that I bought all the accessories for the HTC including an extremely clever car dock that, when connected, knew you were in a car, and switched to car mode with big buttons, sat nav on tap, and message reading. I used it with CoPilot and the Google maps on trips across Europe and it never failed.

In the end it was Android that finally turned me away. Yes the HTC had a very neat trick that when I connected to my MacBook Pro, a message popped up saying “hey, I notice you have an iPhone backup file on your Mac. Would you like me to import your messages, photos, music etc”. But the One never sat easily beside my OSx environment, I’m still picking up the pieces from the Android and IOS mating that cluttered my MacBook Pro. With a twinge of regret I reverted to my iPhone.

So to get a big screen that does phone, and sits nicely in my Apple world would be heaven. But as I said at the beginning, what about my iPads? My original iPad has been collecting dust ever since I got the mini, and frankly the  mini hasn’t had an outing in weeks. And no, I didn’t go for the last refresh on either of those either.

There’s a lot riding for Apple on the iPhone 6. If my experience is anything to go by, there will be people making choices between Apple devices as opposed to building a fleet as has been the case in the past. I’m sure Apple has this all thought out, but it will be interesting to see the impact on Tablet numbers when, or should I say if, the larger screen size options on the new iPhone 6 are announced.