When it comes to the investment required, driving for this ride-hailing apps is an extremely cheap option, too, especially when you consider how much you can easily make at the end of the day. Assuming you already have a vehicle with all the necessary documentation and licenses, all you need is the right smartphone. Fortunately, these platforms approve of a number of different smartphone models from popular brands. The companies also require that each driver have their own smartphone with its own designated SIM card, and have access to the Internet, email, WhatsApp, and other channels of communication. However, ride-hailing companies Uber and Little Cab have banned a number of smartphones from being used by their partner drivers here in Kenya. Alarmingly, most of the smartphones that have been banned are from Infinix and TECNO brands, but premium smartphones like iPhones have not been spared as well. Why I said alarmingly is because we all know that most Infinix and TECNO brands are very affordable and we find that most of the ride-hailing app drivers use these brands by default. But something annoying is that we’ve all experienced instances where the driver could not locate you accurately mainly because of their device capabilities. So this is probably a commendable move by Uber and Little as they have compiled a list of banned phones that their driver-partners should not use.
Uber
Infinix Hot 5Infinix Note 3Infinix Hot 2Infinix S2 ProInfinix SmartInfinix Hot SInfinix Hot NoteInfinix Note 2Infinix Zero 3TECNO Camon CX AirTECNO Camon CXTECNO Pouvoir 2TECNO S6TECNO B1TECNO L8 Lite 2019TECNO W1Nokia 1Nokia 3.1 PlusSamsung Galaxy J1 2016Samsung Galaxy J5Samsung Galaxy Mini Prime 2016Huawei P8 LiteHuawei Y6 2019Wiko Jerry 3Safaricom Neo Ray LTEOppo F5iPhone 8iPhone 7iPhone 5s
The most surprising entrant in this list has to be the iPhone 8, although Apple had acknowledged GPS issues with iPhones and iPhones released in 2012 or earlier, but the exclusion of iPhone 8, iPhone 7 and iPhone 5S in their acknowledgement is quite interesting.
Little
Little Cab’s ban list is short as compared to that of Uber, but they pretty much single out specific devices which are listed below:
All Infinix devicesAll X-TIGI devicesTECNO Y5STECNO M3
Little blacklisted the TECNO Y5S, M3 and all X-TIGI devices as of March 2019 while all Infinix devices were blocked as from April 2019. When it comes to the recommended smartphone to use by driver-partners of ride-hailing apps in Kenya, Uber and Little have the exact requirements for this. It’s highly likely that one “borrowed” some information from the other, but we can’t know who! These are the requirements:
Android version: 6.0 or newerSingle SIM slot only. No dual sim devices2GB RAM minimumSnapdragon or MediatekMinimum processor model: Snapdragon 630 or the Mediatek Helios P10Minimum of an 8 core processor running at 2GhzMinimum Geekbench 4.1 score of 600 (single-core) and 4000 (multicore)The minimum screen size of 4.7 inchesDevice must have both A-GPS and GLONASS
If we compared Bolt’s requirements to Uber and Little’s, they are quite current.
Devices should run at least Android 9.0 or iOS 13 – Whereas Uber and Little don’t mention anything about iOSDevice should have a minimum of 1.5GB of RAMThey don’t recommend rooted phones.Don’t use battery saver since it causes GPS errorsConnect your phone to a charger during the journeyUse a phone holder for the best possible GPS signalSet your location accuracy as “high accuracy” (Bolt warns that they will disable a partner’s account if they show “problematic GPS behaviour.”)
As much as this may be a commendable move by Uber and Little in attempts to offer the best service to their customers, maybe a better option would be to collaborate with a specific smartphone maker to come up with an Uber or Little phone with the right specifications and features for their drivers. Just our two cents!
