I spent last week in San Diego. I like San Diego and I like the client so I expected to have a good time. While that part came true, I also expected nice weather. While it was beautiful for the first half of the week, the second consisted of rain and an earthquake.

What I didn’t expect was to be exposed to new tech, specifically tech-enabled changes to established business models. I already talked about Stacked, so now I want to mention Uber.

Since LISA was in town I was able to meet up with some friends from Chicago. We ended up at a restaurant called Craft & Commerence (good food, great mac ‘n cheese, excellent cocktails). As we were leaving to head back to our respective hotels, I was asked if I had ever heard of “Uber”.

Uber is a system for hiring a “livery service,” or as they say in the biz, a “black car,” to drive you around. While more expensive than a taxi on average, they tend to be nicer and driven by a more skilled driver (again, on average, I’ve ridden in some clean regular cabs with very talented people at the wheel).

You access Uber from your phone, and after you confirm your pick up location it will tell you how long it will take the closest available driver to get to you. If you choose to be picked up, it will associate your request with a driver and you’ll get both the driver’s name and the option to call them. When you set up your Uber account, you configure a credit card and everything else is cashless.

While I didn’t use it that night, I decided to try it out on Friday when we headed down to the Gaslight district to eat at Seersucker (too “hip” of a place for me, the food and drink were too good for most of the clientele to appreciate). The downside was that it had been raining, and this is so unusual in San Diego that it was causing a lot of traffic problems. Because of that and the fact that it was Friday night, I was informed that “surge” pricing was in effect and I would be charged twice the normal rate.

(sigh)

Still, I wanted to try it out, and since I had received a $10 credit when I signed up, I went ahead and called for a car. I was immediately told that my driver was Leeban and that he would be there in 10 minutes.

I went downstairs to wait, and I could track Leeban’s progress on a map in the app. When he got close the map updated to show his picture (a nice security touch) and I received several text messages throughout the process, including one when he arrived.

The car was nice and clean, although not new. Lincoln no longer manufactures Town Cars and so the livery industry is having to make due with old stock. Leeban was very friendly and knowledgable – while my Google Map app suggested taking 163, he said it was a total mess because of the rain and he took me a different way. After a few congested stoplights, it was a straight shot into downtown and I arrived ten minutes earlier than I thought I would.

I asked him about Uber, and he loved it. Many people don’t realize that when you pay a normal taxi driver with a credit card, not only does the taxi service take a large amount of that out for “processing,” (in addition to their share of the fare itself) it can take months for the driver to actually get paid (I always try to pay for cabs with cash). Uber takes a flat 20% fee for setting up the ride and while he didn’t tell me the details, he seemed happy with the speed of payment. But he mainly liked Uber because the clientele tended to be nicer and safer overall, and he never had to worry about getting stiffed on a fare.

When we arrived I asked him if there was anything else I needed to do, specifically did I need to add a tip, and he said no, it was all taken care of. Within five minutes I received a text with the total fare and an e-mail with a detailed receipt.

While most car services charge a flat rate, this is more along the lines of a taxi, with charges for time spent waiting as well as distance. I thought the fares were very reasonable with the exception of the “2x” surcharge and figured I’d use Uber again to get to the airport in the morning, but only if it wasn’t “surge” pricing.

My second Uber ride was similar to the first. I was paired with Abdillahi (both drivers were originally from Ethiopia but had lived in the US for decades). Unlike Friday night, there weren’t too many options, and I had to wait for him to come from the airport in order to take me back. This took about 15 minutes, which is somethiing that I didn’t plan on happening, but I still made it to the airport in plenty of time. Leeban was able to arrive in around 5 minutes (quicker than the initial estimate), so I need to remember to order ahead during off-peak hours.

Abdillahi had a slightly nicer Town Car and was just as professional as Leeban. The fare was $30, which is what I paid for a cab to get to the hotel when I arrived. He also was very happy to be a part of Uber.

I plan to use this service again, especially if I happen to be in one of their foreign locations (it looks like they operate in Amsterdam, London, Paris, Sydney as well as a couple of cities in Canada). Since I plan to be in London for the OpenNMS training at Red Hat, I’ll have to try them out there.

I’m in San Diego this week, and the client took me to Stacked for lunch yesterday.

The Stacked “dining experience” starts off pretty normal: you are greeted by a hostess who takes you to your table and hands you a menu. But it changes a bit from there, because on every table there is an iPad running a custom ordering app. When you sit down, you scan in a credit card and then you can start the ordering process.

Once you have decided on what you want to drink, you navigate through the app and then add it to your order. When everyone at the table has chosen, you hit “send to kitchen”. A few minutes later the drinks arrive.

In the meantime, you can start on your food order. It follows the same process, with the added feature that you can customize nearly everything on the menu. Again, once everyone is finished, you hit “send to kitchen”.

We did have a waitress, but she was mainly there to make sure we understood the system. As there were no prices on the printed menu, I wondered if they changed on the tablet, and if so how frequently. It also raises a question about the amount to tip. Since a good portion of the job of a waiter is to get your order correct and in a timely manner, should you tip less?

It was an interesting dining experience. As a frequent business traveler and no stranger to “table for one,” some of the most frustrating aspects of dining out involve the ordering process. For example, on Sunday I went out for sushi, and after getting a seat at the bar and being left with one of those “check the box” papers, I was pretty much ignored for 20 minutes. I wasn’t given anything to write with, and since all I wanted was the regular sashimi tray there really wasn’t much to do. I finally caught the eye of the sushi chef and got my ordered started.

I like nothing more than having a long dinner with friends, but when I’m alone, eating is more of a chore and I just want it done as efficiently as possible.

Which was a big plus for Stacked. While the Greek Salad I had was nothing special, it was good and when I was ready for dessert I was able to order my ice cream sandwich when I wanted, and I didn’t have to catch the eye of the waitress, etc. I’m not ready to replace my favorite wait staff with a tablet, but for certain dining situations it makes a lot of sense.

What didn’t make a lot of sense was the fact that they used iPads instead of Android tablets. The case covered up the home button to prevent people from exiting the app, but you could still see some of the default border (with the signal strength indicator, etc.) An Android tablet could have been used to create a truly dedicated device.

The final thing that bothered me was that their case, which was probably custom, featured the all too common “cut out” so you could see the Apple logo.

I believe this is Apple’s greatest weakness. They used to compete on innovation, but now their products have become both status symbols and fashion statements. The problem with fashions is that they tend to change, and change quickly. Once everyone has an Apple device, those that drive the fashionable adoption will switch to something else and the herd will follow. It won’t be cool anymore. And when it comes to innovation, I find my Android phone much more innovative than my old iPhone 4.

Dump your stock now. (grin)

Anyway, I’ve seen iPads being used to take orders at restaurants before, but this was the first time I’d seen a tablet of any sort being used by the consumer in a retail transaction. Any other notable cases out there?