RIDEGURU
Doug Feigelson (doug)
Ride Apprentice from San Francisco
7 RiderActivity
Posts by doug
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Mystro (automatic dual apping) is back!
Hi guys, I'm Doug and I lead the team at Mystro. Mystro automates dual-apping Uber and Lyft. Mystro blew … -
New ride comparison app
UPDATE: This app is no longer available.
Not sure about Uber, but there's a trick to see Lyft destination before accepting. You can use the Mystro app to see Lyft ride destination before accepting the trip. Only works on iPhone though.
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/mystro-driver/id1524407919
That makes sense! As long as you have a pretty steady stream of rides it's not terrible to just be driving one service. If you find yourself sitting around a lot waiting for another trip though, I definitely recommend signing up for both so that you can eliminate some of that dead time.
Hmm I don't totally understand your comment. I definitely recommend signing up with both Uber and Lyft and taking them both active to maximize earnings. Of course, once you get a ride on one service, you definitely want to go offline on the other so you don't end up with two simultaneous rides.
Mystro is free for the first two weeks, and I'd be happy to extend the free period for you.
Hi Nick, thanks for chiming in! I'm glad to hear that you all are not intentionally pricing higher than Lyft. Just now I tried my typical commute in both Anyride and Bellhop:
- Bellhop did not show the most economical "Lyft Shared" fare at all.
- Bellhop's Lyft price was a full $1.10 higher than the price shown directly in the Lyft app (and in Anyride)
I tried a few other routes too and had similar results. Our mission at Anyride is to facilitate a healthy and competitive transportation market and promote the interests of riders. We appreciate the early work that you all did which helped advance that cause. We'll continue to keep an eye on Bellhop and all transportation apps so that we can always give the most accurate recommendations to riders.
Doug
Founder, Anyride
Unfortunately it is against the Uber API rules to use that particular API for a price comparison app, as you can see here:
"Please do not...Aggregate Uber with competitors."
https://developer.uber.com/docs/riders/terms-of-use
Good question. I can certainly understand your hesitation to provide this information within a new app. The reason is that you must link your accounts is that Lyft and Uber both use algorithms which create dynamic prices which vary from person to person. So the only way for Anyride to know the exact prices that Lyft and Uber are offering you is for you to link your accounts. It's not like a taxi where prices are set the same for everybody. The link is also necessary since Anyride lets you call rides with a tap.
Linking the accounts requires SMS + password for Uber and SMS + email address for Lyft. These are then presented to Uber/Lyft using industry standard encryption. Uber/Lyft then give Anyride back an authorization token. Your Uber password is not stored by Anyride. As always, it is good practice to use unique passwords for each service you sign up for. Please let me know if you have any more questions!
Hi Brian, no this is not a joke 😉 . Have you actually tried the apps you mentioned? All of them are nearly unusable except Bellhop. Rideguru and Farewell show horribly inaccurate prices–in a quick test, a $5.50 Uber Pool showed as costing over $10 in both apps (makes sense since they don't even authorize with your account–how could they know your prices?). FairFare is no longer at all functional and you cannot pass the signup screen.
Bellhop is a good attempt but bad execution. The immediate dealbreaker is that Bellhop marks up Lyft fares $0.50 - $2.00 [2]. Definitely not what you want when the purpose of comparing fares in the first place is to save money. Also Bellhop is missing Lyft Shared, which is one of the most competitive options. To book an Uber, Bellhop kicks you out into the Uber app, where you must wait for fares to load and actually book it through there (compared to Anyride, which lets you book any fare directly with a tap). Of course, Bellhop does let you call the marked up Lyft fares from their app 😏. Finally Bellhop is awfully cluttered and makes it very slow and clunky to actually identify the best fare. Compare this to Anyride, which sorts all fares by price in each category, so you can spot and call the best ride in seconds.
It's clear you've spent some time researching alternatives so I'd love to hear your feedback on Anyride or other thoughts. Also it sounds like you live in NYC–I'm working on Juno and Via support, two awesome options not supported yet by any other comparison app!
PS Rideguru is an awesome community, just not a good app!