Why use GPS, just walk to an intersection so you know where you are, and set the needle there.

If driver comes on the other side of street, maybe cross the street.

A tiny bit of effort goes a long way...

At least in the pastUber didn't use the needle GPS coordinates, it picked the nearest street address from the pin. Fun times were had, when trying to get a pick-up from an outdoor event.

I broke my foot a year ago and spent three months on crutches. For a lot of that period, crossing the street or walking down the block was a meaningfully difficult task for me.

Whenever I called a rideshare, I very explicitly set the needle to exactly where I was. It's amazing how frequently I'd have a driver park across the street and a block away, and get angry when I didn't come to them.

Have had MAJOR issues with this internationally (specifically Hong Kong). Wait time fluctuated by 15 minutes at times! Almost caused us to miss our flight.

> If you are in the NYC area for example, the GPS just really struggles between all the buildings.

What phone are you using?

In a decade of living in Manhattan, I've never had any issue like this. The location services on my phone (Pixel 2 XL) and every Android phone I've ever used have been spot on.

Google and Apple do some tricks based on WiFi to fix GPS in dense urban areas. Raw gps is basically unusable in these areas.

Since you have to set a pickup pin explicitly, how does GPS matter at all, here?

Drivers sometimes go to where the live GPS signal tells them you are instead of the pin. Likewise the pin is sometimes required to be in dumb spots (like the airport) even when there's a much more convenient spot 100 feet down the street.

In my experience, the location I choose is often lost in translation between my Uber app and the driver's maps app. Sometimes the difference is egregious.

Uber is nuts for letting drivers use their own maps app.

Yeah no.

The Uber native maps app is almost invariably incorrect, at least here in Brooklyn. It does insane stuff like trying to put you on the BQE (interstate) to go like 800 yards or route you from Brooklyn to Brooklyn by transiting Manhattan and two bridges.

Until they figure out how to fix that they pretty much need to let drivers flip over to Waze or something.

Don't forget the best route for Uber is not necessarily the shortest or quickest.

I was careful not to say "third-party" maps app. They may have been making excuses for their own mistakes, but drivers have told me that sometimes the built-in Uber maps also get the wrong location.

I have no idea if that's true and have always been confused about whether the driver app even has maps built into it.

I had that problem a lot in South Africa. We'd set a pickup spot exactly where we want it, drivers told me the uber app shows them the last location I was at instead.

> Google and Apple do some tricks based on WiFi to fix GPS in dense urban areas. Raw gps is basically unusable in these areas.

Location Services doesn't just use raw GPS, no, but that's what most drivers (and passengers) are using.

In any case, for several years, I only used the device GPS (instead of the full location services), and I never had any issues like what OP is describing.

Uber has also put quite some effort into better location on Android:

https://eng.uber.com/rethinking-gps/

I don't think too many Uber drivers are running their gigs on GlobalSats dangling from Arduinos. They tend to have phones.

iPhones, model hasn't mattered. Flat Iron + GPS = location lottery for me anytime of the day.

> iPhones, model hasn't mattered. Flat Iron + GPS = location lottery for me anytime of the day.

That's unfortunate. As I said, every Android phone I had has been spot on everywhere in the city.

Same with me for my iPhone after a decade in the city (iPhone didn’t even have gps when I first got here). Wonder why they’re having such a problem?

For the first time in 11 years I'm thinking of switching off T-Mobile after relocating to Chicago. Much of my day is spent in the loop and despite their best claims buildings are a bane.

Can anyone recommend a carrier with better QOS here or is this just inherent to my new life in a giant city? I'll get over it and adapt, just keeping my options open.

The GP was referring to a problem with GPS, not their cellular connection. In any case, I haven't noticed any issues with T-mobile in San Francisco, so maybe T-mobile has some weaknesses unique to the Chicago area.

I'm fully aware but in the context of GPS reception on cellular devices--prompting me to ask what I thought was a tangential question. Apologies that this was such a severe faux pas to end up downvoted into the negatives.

Last time in Chi-town (2016) I had the best signal of the bunch with my TMO (others mostly on ATT/VZ).

Of course, over-subscription is a thing, so maybe things degraded?

Verizon, unfortunately. Though a lot of the issue isn't signal but bandwidth. There are just too many people. You'll have five bars and nothing will load. That's what caused me to leave T-Mobile.

In Chicago, ATT is one of the better ones. It works reliably in the loop as well. Just read the fine print carefully for those extra charges.