James Siminoff

The great taxi app wars

A few days ago I did a post about how much I loved the taxi app on my iPhone called Taxi Magic.  I immediately got a comment from my friend Ken Berger, about another taxi app that his friend John Wolpert is working on called Cabulous.

After the comment from Ken I ended up receiving a comment from a few other people talking about Cabulous (including the founder John Wolpert).  I also received a comment from Sanders Partee, co-founder of TaxiMagic.  When I wrote the original post I had never imagined the response that I would get.  I always appreciate feedback so thanks for everyone that commented, keep them coming.

Anyway so I figured with all of this activity it was my duty as entrepreneur and blogger to check out Cabulous and see how it rates compared to TaxiMagic.

Cabulous is basically a mobile phone app (on both sides the taxi driver needs to have a smart phone as well) that allows the person getting picked up to find the taxi that is closest to them or that they like the most (you can literally see the different taxi drivers and if you have a favorite one close by you can pick that one vs. someone else).  Once you pick the cab the second big part of Cabulous is it allows you to move around, say it starts raining and you want to go in the Starbucks a block away, it will show the driver your change of pickup automatically.  Once you are picked up, Cabulous is done, you are now on a standard taxi ride.

TaxiMagic is integrated into the taxi’s gps and payment system (I am sure there is a complex name for that system but I have no idea).  When you want to book a car on Taxi magic, you get a list of taxi companies, you pick the company, your pickup location can be found by GPS or you can override by typing one in.  Once you book a cab, you get a confirm and a map/info on the cab that is coming to get you.  When the cab gets there, you get in and take the cab to desired destination.  Once at that destination you bring the app up, type in the final amount and literally like Magic (sorry for the pun) the driver sees the payment (comes from a credit card on file with TaxiMagic) and you walk away.

Now for the review part.  First let me say that as an entrepreneur in a competitive business my product gets reviewed all of the time.  Most of the times it is favorable but sometimes it is negative.  Negative reviews always get to me as I fight to have the best experience, so to both entreprenuers here, you both have great products and also have obvious passion about the market, congrats on that!

Cabulous has done a great job on the picking a cab and pick up part, definitely the user experience for that is better then TaxiMagic.  Hoever, I worry that because the driver needs to have a smart phone that they will just not have the critical mass to make this work but we will let them solve that problem.  My real issue with the Cabulous app is that it only solves half of my issue.  There are 2 things that I hate about riding in cabs, calling for them (you have to actually talk to someone) and paying for them.  Paying cabs is the worst, I like to use credit cards and if you have ever tried to give a cabbie a credit card it is simply amazing the excuses they have as to why it will not work.  Cabulous does not have the paying side as they feel that is not the pain point.  I am sure that I am not a average customer so they might be right for the mass market but when it comes to my taxi usage fixing payment is critical to having me a customer.

So that said at this point I am going to stay a very happy customer of TaxiMagic.  They solve both my issues, pick up and payment.  Also they have so far worked perfectly and as advertised.  It will be interesting to see how this market evolves and if simplifying the user experience of cabs will grow the overall market and take away from things like car rentals in the future.