The continually declining accessibility of the Uber eats iOS app

By Luke, 22 January, 2022

Forum
iOS and iPadOS

It seems the Uber eats app for iOS just keeps getting worse and worse. As of the most recent update, when you are flicking left or right through the main list of restaurants, instead of each restaurant being a single focusable item, now you have to flick three or four times per restaurant because the restaurant name, approximate delivery time, ratings and other information are now each their own element, making scrolling the list of restaurants even more tedious than it already was. This is so frustrating.

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Comments

By Brad on Monday, January 24, 2022 - 20:49

There's doordash if you're in the US or JustEat and deliveroo if you're in the UK.

By Luke on Monday, January 24, 2022 - 20:49

Right, there are always other choices. It still sucks that this particular app isn’t working. I’ve invested in their eats pass and they have some restaurants I can’t find on other apps

By Brad on Monday, January 24, 2022 - 20:49

Yeah that does suck.

I use deliveroo now cause with UberEats it's always, this restaurant is to far away.

By Siobhan on Monday, January 24, 2022 - 20:49

Hi. I'm about to be one of those people i hate. The I don't have this either, type of person. I did use Uber eats the other night with no issue. Having said that, my wrap did not come with the condiment I requested so if you want to read into that be my guest.

By Andy Lane on Monday, January 24, 2022 - 20:49

Hi, although the Uber eats app isn’t well formatted for voiceover I can usually get an order completed. I say usually though as sometimes I give up when its particularly bad. Strange that its more or less usable on different weeks. Sometimes I can’t use the search field, sometimes every time I add something to the order it takes me straight back to the top, sometimes I can’t get past the Our drivers are important to us, so important that we don’t pay them enough so would you like to make up their wage to something they can live on screen. Anyway, frustrating as it is I don’t buy the theres other options argument. When there are only a few options that the entire world operates on its much more important that they make their apps accessible otherwise we’re excluded from a huge part of the world that others have access to for no reason other than the company is awful and doesn’t care enough to code their apps properly. If there are only 3 options and the other 2 stop making there apps accessible, then what? Leaving aside the track record Uber has with its drivers, I’ve been let down more than 10 times by them and they don’t care one way or the other when I complain. Coding an app is something they have direct control over, there are laws that mandate they make them accessible in most countries.

By Wayne Scott Jr on Monday, January 24, 2022 - 20:49

There's always Postmates or Grubhub. At least out here in the midwest of the US. There's also BiteSquad.

By sockhopsinger on Monday, January 24, 2022 - 20:49

The only part of the app I have found completely ridiculously lacking in accessibility is trying to contact a driver via text. The text field doesn't read at all with Voiceover. The only way I have found to somewhat work it is to turn off Voiceover, tap on the bottom of the screen until you hear the clicks of typing so you know the text field has focus, then reenable Voiceover and dictate my text message. I can't read back what I typed and I sure can't get Braille input to work. Very bad on Uber Eats' part. To the person who has issues with Voiceover reading one thing at a time when flicking left and right, try sorting your entries at the top of the page by only those Uber One restaurants. I find that when I do this it goes back to working like it is supposed to.

By William on Monday, January 24, 2022 - 20:49

Agreed, I have found that sending a message to a driver is completely inaccessible, just as you describe it. I am unable to find the text field.

I tried to report it through the help function in the app and was asked for a screen shot. Am I the only one who gets really annoyed when a tech asks for a screen shot when you are trying to report a voice over issue?

By William on Thursday, February 24, 2022 - 20:49

I just downloaded a new version of the app today and this issue appears to be fixed.

By Luke on Thursday, February 24, 2022 - 20:49

Hey folks. At the time I posted this issue I was still on iOS 14.x. I finally (reluctantly) upgraded to v15 and navigating the restaurant list is working normally again.
As for issues texting the driver, yes, last time I tried that it was completely inaccessible and I had to do as someone else described -- disable VoiceOver, tap near the bottom edge of the screen where the text field is, re-enable VoiceOver and then type my message. Sounds like perhaps this, too, has been fixed now which would be great.
I confess perhaps I titled this post in a moment of frustration and UberEats certainly isn't unusably bad. There is at least one other big problem though -- you can't easily scroll through categories on a menu. There used to be a control that would let you swipe up or down to go through the different categories -- entrees, desserts, drinks, etc but it seems to have been removed. Moving by heading doesn't always work. If the next heading is too far away VoiceOver won't jump to it. This means it's either a game of trial-and-error three finger scrolling by pages at a time, or you can search the menu if you already know what you want. Annoying but workable I guess.