
Expanding Access: Engineering Uber Lite - 076ae80a-3c97-4
https://eng.uber.com/engineering-uber-lite/
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gingerjoos
Ola, their competitor in India, has a similar "lite" app as well[1]. In my
experience, a better app.

[1]
[https://developers.google.com/web/showcase/2017/ola](https://developers.google.com/web/showcase/2017/ola)

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saagarjha
This is a Progressive Web App, as opposed to the native one that Uber is
using. Do you feel that this is the reason it’s better, or because you feel
the Ola app does more, looks nicer, is smaller, etc?

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gruez
Looks the lite version is actually a native app, unlike other "lite" apps (eg.
google maps go) which are just wrappers around a PWA. Nice to see they
actually spent effort into making it as smooth as possible.

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PaulHoule
I love the fanatical approach to high speed over a bad network -- fitting
messages into 1 MTU is a real protip.

This article

[https://eng.uber.com/new-rider-app/](https://eng.uber.com/new-rider-app/)

talks about their main app and the talk about architecture is fascinating
because it has the "factory factory" that builds the app and then the part
that interacts with the API is kept separated from the UI code. I keep
converging on solutions like that whenever I write GUI code because otherwise
you will lose control sooner or later.

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076ae80a-3c97-4
It's nice to see app size and network speed talked about seriously. The size
of some Android apps is astounding (looking at you Facebook) and the lack of
consideration for those in rural areas when designing APIs can be remarkable.

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Gys
Facebook is clearly a very pragmatic company. If ppl do not complain, then why
spend time optimizing the file size.

Its a basic rule for startups as well: do not spend time or money on solving
problems you do not (yet) have.

I think only we developers are aware of this. Not the general public ?

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mikeash
I think it’s particularly important for Uber because their typical first-time
user has an immediate need and is away from home. If the app takes too long to
download over cellular data or random airport WiFi then they’ve likely lost a
customer to the competition.

