Lime, a scooter-sharing giant, is updating its app to make renting one of the company’s battery-powered two-wheel vehicles a little easier. Customers can now take advantage of new features such as walking without an app, 10-minute reservations and vehicle settings to take advantage of scooter sharing a little.
Customers who don’t have the Lime app on their phone can still travel by taking a photo of the scooter’s QR code and paying with Apple Pay or Google Pay. Lime says it will be a useful tool for first-time passengers who don’t want to compromise or don’t have space on their phones. The functionality works by temporarily downloading a portion of the normal Lime application. It uses the Instant Apps feature on Android, while on iPhones it uses the new App Clips feature, which arrived last year as part of iOS 14.
Reservations can be a potential advantage for anyone who has thought of renting a scooter nearby, only to discover that it was already gone by the time they arrive at the supposed location. After testing the feature in some important markets, Lime will now allow customers to reserve a scooter for 10 minutes in an effort to relieve the stress of riding a scooter.
Lime will also begin to recommend certain vehicles to its customers. Thus, when opening the application, the company will direct you to the nearest vehicle with the best battery life. Combined with the reservation feature, Lime believes that this will help customers protect their vehicles faster, estimating that it will take “less than 5 seconds” to book a scooter after opening the app.
And finally, the Lime app is getting a dark mode to help customers better see their options while walking at night.
Lime, which operates in 120 cities on five continents, is growing as the weather heats up in some important markets. In addition to adding new products such as electric mopeds and pouring money into a major expansion of electric bicycles, the company is in talks to go public through a reverse merger. Lime says its customers made more than 200 million trips on their e-scooters and e-bikes last year, with the company expecting that number to grow significantly in 2021.
March 24 update, 6:39 am ET: Added confirmation that walking without an app uses Instant Apps on Android and App Clips on iOS.