What do you think about HelaGo as a passenger?
What do you think about HelaGo as a passenger? HelaGo came in as a competitor to PickMe and Uber, which is really good, as it provides another option to reduce both the tuk-tuk mafia and the corporate monopoly of PickMe and Uber. That part is great, but the product seems very silent. Even if you book PickMe or Uber and ask drivers, they say they’ve registered with HelaGo but aren’t getting any hires.
Personally, I believe there are tons of things to improve, which is alright since the app is still in its initial stage. But time has passed, and it’s high time they released another version. Waiting until it becomes perfect isn’t ideal, because nothing is perfect.
Normally, Dhanika Perera and his team read feedback on Facebook and even comment, which is nice. But I don’t think they have people on Reddit to observe or engage.
It has been quite some time since the initial release, and there are a lot of bugs. That’s alright, but waiting too long to address every single issue is not ideal, in my opinion. What do you think about that?
Simple approach: they can gather all feedback from app stores, forums like these, and Facebook, then copy everything into ChatGPT and prompt it to remove duplicate issues and highlight the main bugs. Then they can categorize major issues and solve them, not all at once, but a few at least for the next update. Slowly, they can address the rest.
I don’t know why they are waiting so much. By the time they wait, people will forget that we even have an app called HelaGo.
There are so many issues in that HelaGo standalone app.
••• First one is they let us use our Google account to register. As an example, I use a Yahoo address for PickMe and Uber, but for HelaGo they only let us use Google.
••• And they use Open Maps instead of Google Maps; my home location is right, but they give me totally strange street names that are actually not in the actual places.
••• We cannot rate drivers later; we have to rate right away or you won’t be able to do that.
••• When the HelaGo app opens, my classic navigation buttons disappear, and to get that I have to swipe from the bottom I mean then I can see them, but still why would they disappear in the first place?
••• Sometimes it log in like a website; it acts and doesn’t load the page.
••• I don’t use it through the Helakuru app. I really hate this super app concept and everything is under freaking Helakuru just because they are famous for Helakuru and they put everything on the app. But it seems most people like it.
••• Although I used the pro version, I do not use PayHere, that sithalu or something, chat, reload, weda hamu wtf or stuff like that. Esana news is kind of okay. I don’t know about others, but I used the standalone app, so the app is still in an initial stage. They haven’t updated it after.
••• Also there’s no option to book for a friend.
••• Also arrival time it says bullshit; apart from arrival time they should have included KMs like Uber.
••• Also better add PIN; you know how our tuk buggers are.
••• For some reason, the driver doesn’t know if the trip has one stop or several stops and ends the ride at the first stop.
••• Sometimes even if we are moving it doesn’t show like I’m in a tuk and literally traveling; it shows somewhere else. Again the map issue.
••• Sometimes the app crashes when we try to add a card. I gave it up.
••• Charge amount is changing even after we accept a bit; it increases, driver and passenger both are confusing because it shows us a fare that is above what the driver agrees as well.
••• So many glitches.
••• So many notifications getting like "ohh.. this is Friday you wanna go home" nah.. bro wtf..? i mean too much notifications on all week.
••• Small roads do not show on this sh!!!tt Open Maps. They should include Google Maps instead.
••• Pickup location is auto captured; it doesn’t let us pick or it’s difficult.
••• It appears as a connection error most of the time.
••• It looks minimal, which is good, but again complicated.
Correct me if I am wrong, this is still in an initial released app. So many issues to be addressed. Some people hate when we write negative comments in Facebook groups or maybe in here because according to them we cannot criticize the app because it was built in Sri Lanka. I mean honestly, Dhanika and his team are geniuses, but we do not have to worship them. They are doing great, but we can and we have to criticize the app if there are faults. They should release updated version soon without waiting to be the perfect time.
