Remarkable how the designers did not conceive that cell coverage doesn't actually cover every inch of the planet or is 100% reliable. What will we have next? A heart-lung machine that depends on 24x7 internet access?
I frequently land in places where my connection is but a trickle(with an absurd ping of 20s at that), and because of that a large part of apps simply refuse to work.
One notable exception is Facebook Messenger - if it doesn't work then you really don't have internet.
The browser will attempt to slowly load while the application outright refuses to attempt, and claims it has no connection, even the the browser is loading
It's bad enough having banks rely on a phone system where most carriers are perfectly happy to let anyone who knows your Address, DOB and Mother's Maiden name to port your phone number to a new SIM.
It probably requires less effort (and certainly less risk of discovery) to take over a Skype, Google Voice or other VOIP/SMS service.
Yeah, cell service is not something to rely upon in California!
Vacationing in wildfire regions during wildfire season.
You let your fuel tank get low without knowing when or where your next fillup would be.
You didn't have hotel reservations in advance.
You waited until nightfall to find a room.
You're relying on a smartphone for navigation.
You didn't make offline maps of the whole region on everyone's devices. All of California is only around 2gb in Google Maps. That functionality has existied for a decade.
I have discovered by driving with others as navigators, that a lot of people cannot read a map and are literally just doing what the App says.
If you miss a turn, people are incapable of looking at the map and saying "go one more block and take a left to get back on course". They have to wait for a reroute.
Probably next time you should only express opinion in topics you not only see from the idealistic viewpoint of an outsider.
Or simply not deviate from the topic of bad cell coverage just to criticize someone in something you cannot comprehend fully.
That would be absolutely frustrating. I have no idea how they can keep the confidence of their customers. It’s such an egregious non-starter.
btw, testing is very important and i think most companies don't exhaust enough test cases. had google maps gone bonkers in the country especially during very bad weather. i don't think there is a map app out there that takes the weather into account...
Seems like a useful thing but I don’t see it in Waze, gMaps, or aMaps. Why is that?
Seems like that's available from NOAA for cheap, isn't it?
Are you saying that 90% of rental through phone are made in area without data service?
I'm a big user of Communauto in Quebec, which is a similar car sharing service but does have a key inside (I'm pretty sure they do have the same issue of unlocking the car though, but you take and release the car at the same spot, so the unlock will work at first for sure, and afterward you should keep the key). 99% of my usage with them has been done with data coverage. I only used it once without cell coverage and funnily enough I may have stressed them a bit because I was close to the border and it lasted 48 hours ;).