Price: $1.99 Score: 8/10 By Shaun Campbell
Most people know their local cab numbers – but what do you do when you’re out of town? Cab4Me from Skycoders GmbH is a new iPhone app that makes finding a cab easy, no matter where you are. Cab4Me uses your current location (via GPS or cell triangulation) and retrieves relevant local cab company information from a database, so you can get the information you need while you’re on-the-go.
Using Cab4Me is surprisingly simple – the iPhone will detect your location and the app will automatically list both Cab4Me database results and web-results. Alternatively, you can search for cabs in a particular area or city using the “Search” pane. Cab companies in the Cab4Me database tend to be major & established companies, which is important, as safety and reliability are major concerns particularly when traveling. From the list of cab companies – you can tap on any listing for more information including:
- Additional information
- Services (e.g available 24/7, luggage space, baby seats, wheelchair access)
- Payment methods (e.g Cash, VISA, Mastercard, Amex, Diners)
- Available car types (e.g maxi-cabs, bus, limo)
Once you’ve found a cab company, you can give the company a call direct from the app and also add the company to a favorites list. There is also the option to rate the cab company – so whether your experience is positive or negative – you can let other users know.
The only two drawbacks that Cab4Me has are 1) The information provided on cab companies is often incomplete and 2) You must have an internet connection available to access the database. Quite often, especially when traveling, information regarding availability of certain services or payment methods is essential in choosing the right cab company – and you may not have access to this information at all if you don’t have data roaming available in other countries.
Bottom line: A very useful app for locating a cab that fits your requirements, no matter where you find yourself. Cab info can be stored offline, but requires an internet connection to access.
Cab4Me requires the iPhone OS 2.2 software update and is compatible with both the iPhone & iPod Touch.
December 19th, 2009 at 7:00 am
Interesting! Exactly what I was looking for before I found the cabchap app on the app store. CabChap is free, works in the US, Canada, UK, Australia and a few other countries and lists all the companies and drivers, without selection. Rating helps to weed out bad service. I like it.