New Dublin based food delivery app Beta

Mr. Flibble

In January my brother and I set about designing and creating an app that would make it easy to order takeaway food. An app that didn't make you jump through hoops and make you work for your food, but instead was straightforward and enjoyable to use.

9 months later we are a lot closer to our goal but aren't quite there yet. I'd really like to get some feedback on the current version of the app so that when we do launch it, it'll do what people want and be as polished as possible.

If anyone in Dublin with an iPhone 4 or newer would like to try out the app please drop me a PM and I'll send you a link and instructions.


Due to Apple rules, I can't just put out a link to the app here for all to try as it's not in the App store yet.



JOE.IE did an article on this a couple of months ago.


What to expect when you try the beta

• No need to enter an email address or password
• No need to type your full address. Geo-location will do that for you.
• Re-order meals in 2 taps
• Search hundreds of menus for your favourite dish. Want to find every restaurant in the area that will deliver you a red curry? You can.
• There is absolutely no added cost when ordering food via the app.
• This is a live beta. Your orders will be processed and hot tasty food will arrive!

We are at the stage where we really need feedback on the app. Any feedback will be very much appreciated.

coylemj

Do we gather that you don't care about the majority of smartphone users?

biko

Not sure what coylemj is on about but I have a question - what info do app share with the restaurant? It has to be something else if not mail or phone number?
Or do restaurant just get a note that someone at somewhere wants a meal?

coylemj

biko wrote: »

Not sure what coylemj is on about .....

>80% of smartphone users are Android ......

http://www.idc.com/prodserv/smartphone-os-market-share.jsp

In Q2 2015, Samsung alone sold more phones than Apple .....

Samsung continues to rule over Apple in smartphone market

Apple’s share of profits is remarkable given that it sells less than 20% of smartphones

AlmightyCushion

You should really take people's numbers. There have been a few times when ordering on just eat that the restaurant has needed to ring me about something. How does this differ from just eat?

yoyo

I'll move this thread to the Apple devices forum as it is specific to this platform. Best of luck with it!

Nick

Mr. Flibble

AlmightyCushion wrote: »

You should really take people's numbers. There have been a few times when ordering on just eat that the restaurant has needed to ring me about something. How does this differ from just eat?

You're absolutely right. I had meant to say that people don't need to enter an email address or password. It would be quite ambitious to get orders delivered with no customer contact info!

The phone number is actually the only info that you need to type in to place an order. Everything else can be entered in other ways (eg. Using the map for the address, clicking a link to login). I really wanted to avoid the user typing in anything at all, but it's against Apples rules to read the phone number from the phone. People must type it it msnually.

coylemj, not at all. We're a small self funded team and it just wasn't possible for us to build two versions of the app in parallel. We didn't have the budget for it. Building both an Android and iOS app at once would have meant that we would have made the same mistakes twice over, and would have to fix them in two versions of the app.
Instead we decided it was best for us to iron out all the design issues and get the app working as we intended and then make an Android version.

We will have an Android version down the road.

banquo

coylemj wrote: »

>80% of smartphone users are Android ......

http://www.idc.com/prodserv/smartphone-os-market-share.jsp

In Q2 2015, Samsung alone sold more phones than Apple .....

Samsung continues to rule over Apple in smartphone market

Apple’s share of profits is remarkable given that it sells less than 20% of smartphones

Market share explained, and the difference between market share and usage

As for the app, I'm always interested in trying new directory-based apps! Will PM.

Mr. Flibble

banquo post explains a lot. Here's some iOS vs Android usage data, as opposed to unit sales data.
Ireland appears to have a portion of iPhone users vs Android users compared with the rest of the world.

"Worldwide data", but probably highly weighted to US users.

But we do still plan making an Android version!


AlmightyCushion; how does it differ to the competition?
The main difference that people will see is the ease and speed of use.
The JE iPhone app requires new users to type out the following:

1. Your current area (to show a list of restaurants in the area)
2. Your email
3. Your password
4. Your password again
5. Your name
6. Your phone number
7. Your address (three text fields)

Compared with

1. 8 characters for your phone number (the '08' is pre-filled)

We don't ask for data unless we absolutely need it to get your order placed. And if there's anything we can work out without asking you to enter it, we try to do that.

You don't have to confirm your location every. single. time. If it looks like you are at home, we'll presume you are at home.

This means that for repeat users, they can re-order meals with only two taps.


Some nifty (IMHO) features:

Ratings
Viewing ratings for restaurants before you order is great. It lets you know if you're likely to receive a lovely hot meal, or will end up with a cold soggy mess. But after you've ordered from a restaurant, you probably trust your own thoughts about the food there more than other people's ratings. The app tries to help you out here: if you haven't ordered from a restaurant you'll be shown an average of other people's ratings (1-5 stars). But once you've ordered and rated a meal you'll be shown your rating. So 6 months later, you'll remember that you really loved that curry you had from xyz.





Need to call the restaurant?
There may be times that you want to call the restaurant before you order. For instance, if you need to know if a meal contains nuts. We show you the restaurant's phone number right there on the menu screen, which you can dial by tapping the number. Our competition give you no way to contact the restaurant until after you've placed an order.

Creatures of habit
While I like to try new dishes from time to time, I don't think I'm alone in having a favourite dish. The app will remember which dishes have been ordered in the past from each restaurant and it will show you these at the top of the menu in future.



That's where we are at now, but I know there are hundreds of improvements that we could make that we haven't though of. So, please do send me a PM if you're willing to try it out and offer your feedback. We'll give every beta tester a €5 discount voucher. Just PM me.

banquo

Have to say, I completely agree that the ordering process, especially for food delivery, is crap on JE and on apps in general. I haven't tried Deliveroo yet, though their site is pretty slick.