> Is it just me or are all these delivery apps pretty much the same thing, just with different restaurants?
They're surprisingly different in both how good the software is and how efficiently they operate. I'll give three examples of my experiences with European apps.
Wolt (Finnish) - Super polished native app. Very accurate to-the-minute ETA predictions, you can see GPS tracking of couriers as soon as they start heading towards the restaurant. The menus are polished and full of pictures. You can rate couriers and food. The app even includes a mini-game on the ETA screen. Payment by card associated with your account.
Bolt (Estonian) - A comparatively new entry in food delivery with an ok native app. ETAs are all over the place as it keeps re-calculating, although eventually the delivery is reasonably paced. GPS tracking starts after the courier has picked up the food. About a third of the food items have pictures. No rating of food or couriers. No mini-games. Occasional crashes. Payment by card associated with your account.
Lieferando (German - owned by Just Eat Takeway, the company buying Grubhub) - Complete dumpster fire. The "native app" is just a webview of some 2010 style webpage. No pictures of food, no GPS tracking. A static "ETA 30min" estimation that never changes or counts down, it's just always 30min. Payment is a per-order giant form of options that's super German, prioritizing cash-on-delivery. I made the mistake of paying by card. The food never arrived at all. The app itself doesn't give any notifications that there's a failed delivery or anything - the ETA was 30min even 48h later. Customer support is extremely hostile and only responds after several days. The iOS reviews are full of people complaining that they got scammed with no delivery. Ended up having to do a chargeback through my bank.
They're surprisingly different in both how good the software is and how efficiently they operate. I'll give three examples of my experiences with European apps.
Wolt (Finnish) - Super polished native app. Very accurate to-the-minute ETA predictions, you can see GPS tracking of couriers as soon as they start heading towards the restaurant. The menus are polished and full of pictures. You can rate couriers and food. The app even includes a mini-game on the ETA screen. Payment by card associated with your account.
Bolt (Estonian) - A comparatively new entry in food delivery with an ok native app. ETAs are all over the place as it keeps re-calculating, although eventually the delivery is reasonably paced. GPS tracking starts after the courier has picked up the food. About a third of the food items have pictures. No rating of food or couriers. No mini-games. Occasional crashes. Payment by card associated with your account.
Lieferando (German - owned by Just Eat Takeway, the company buying Grubhub) - Complete dumpster fire. The "native app" is just a webview of some 2010 style webpage. No pictures of food, no GPS tracking. A static "ETA 30min" estimation that never changes or counts down, it's just always 30min. Payment is a per-order giant form of options that's super German, prioritizing cash-on-delivery. I made the mistake of paying by card. The food never arrived at all. The app itself doesn't give any notifications that there's a failed delivery or anything - the ETA was 30min even 48h later. Customer support is extremely hostile and only responds after several days. The iOS reviews are full of people complaining that they got scammed with no delivery. Ended up having to do a chargeback through my bank.