Hacker News: griffinli

New comment by griffinli in "Is this the end of the once-mighty GoPro?"

griffinli — Sun, 19 Jul 2026 03:17:39 +0000

Hue does support Matter. Hue is expensive but delivers a premium experience, unlike the products talked about in this thread that are expensive but not better than the competition.

New comment by griffinli in "Show HN: Hackney – Compare Uber, Lyft, Waymo, and Robotaxi Prices"

griffinli — Tue, 14 Jul 2026 03:40:16 +0000

An alternative possibility is that a rideshare company sees that Alice always takes the price that's offered so Alice receives the standard price, whereas Bob is price-sensitive so he receives personalized discounts on rides until the prices reach the amount that he's willing to pay.

New comment by griffinli in "Show HN: Hackney – Compare Uber, Lyft, Waymo, and Robotaxi Prices"

griffinli — Tue, 14 Jul 2026 03:24:02 +0000

Free markets are great.

New comment by griffinli in "Show HN: Hackney – Compare Uber, Lyft, Waymo, and Robotaxi Prices"

griffinli — Tue, 14 Jul 2026 02:52:32 +0000

It's possible they do that, but it's difficult to block third-party clients entirely. Changes to APIs can generally be worked around.

New comment by griffinli in "Show HN: Hackney – Compare Uber, Lyft, Waymo, and Robotaxi Prices"

griffinli — Tue, 14 Jul 2026 01:11:52 +0000

That can work for two apps but it's tedious once there are three or more. You'd also need to swipe back and forth between apps to find the corresponding prices for each ride type (Wait & Save, Standard, Comfort, etc.), whereas this app groups together the prices for each ride type across providers.

New comment by griffinli in "Show HN: Hackney – Compare Uber, Lyft, Waymo, and Robotaxi Prices"

griffinli — Tue, 14 Jul 2026 01:04:29 +0000

What project was this?

New comment by griffinli in "Show HN: Hackney – Compare Uber, Lyft, Waymo, and Robotaxi Prices"

griffinli — Tue, 14 Jul 2026 00:03:40 +0000

That's a valid concern but I think it's unlikely. No one's account has been locked for using this app. Rideshare companies take a large cut of the ride fare, so locking user accounts for using third-party apps is against their incentives. It's more likely that they would try to prevent this app from working, rather than targeting users of the app.

New comment by griffinli in "Show HN: Hackney – Compare Uber, Lyft, Waymo, and Robotaxi Prices"

griffinli — Mon, 13 Jul 2026 23:59:17 +0000

App Review didn't object to that. There are various apps on the App Store today that rely on reverse engineering, such as unified messaging apps, alternative rideshare price comparison apps, and driver-side rideshare aggregators.

New comment by griffinli in "Show HN: Hackney – Compare Uber, Lyft, Waymo, and Robotaxi Prices"

griffinli — Mon, 13 Jul 2026 23:54:45 +0000

That's planned!

New comment by griffinli in "Show HN: Hackney – Compare Uber, Lyft, Waymo, and Robotaxi Prices"

griffinli — Mon, 13 Jul 2026 16:00:11 +0000

It works throughout the US and Canada.

New comment by griffinli in "Show HN: Hackney – Compare Uber, Lyft, Waymo, and Robotaxi Prices"

griffinli — Mon, 13 Jul 2026 15:48:00 +0000

No, just mobile.

Show HN: Hackney – Compare Uber, Lyft, Waymo, and Robotaxi Prices

griffinli — Mon, 13 Jul 2026 14:47:23 +0000

I created an app that compares real-time prices and wait times across Uber, Lyft, Waymo, Tesla Robotaxi, Curb, and Empower. It shows you all ride options in one list, then once you’re ready to book, it deeplinks you to the provider’s app with the route pre-filled.

Edit: Here's a demo video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VV8PEAjxwQI

I reverse-engineered ride-hailing mobile apps to understand how they fetch prices from their servers. You sign in to my app with your ride-hailing accounts, and then my app requests live prices from the same APIs that ride-hailing apps use. Importantly, my app is built using an on-device approach: the app on your phone stores authentication tokens locally and sends network requests directly to each ride-hailing company’s servers. This keeps your accounts private. I wrote a blog post showing network requests sent by my app, which you can verify yourself: https://blog.hackney.app/p/how-hackney-works

This seems like an obvious app. Why doesn’t it already exist? That’s because most ride-hailing companies don’t offer public APIs for prices and wait times. Uber does offer one, but they prohibit using it for price comparison. When someone built a comparison app using the official API, Uber terminated their API access (https://www.benedelman.org/news-053116). There are apps today that don’t use official APIs, but they run your account tokens through their servers and send price requests server-side.

To integrate a ride-hailing provider, my app sends network requests for sign-in, token refresh, ride prices, and ride history (to power a feature that shows you unified ride history across apps and how much you’ve saved on each ride). Some ride-hailing apps implement certificate pinning to prevent you from viewing their network requests, and some communicate with their server using Protobuf, a data format that doesn’t include the original field names. Building an app using this approach is technically complex, but it makes possible all sorts of useful products that couldn’t otherwise exist.

The app is completely free. In the future, I may monetize through a subscription or partnerships with ride-hailing companies. I’d love to hear your feedback. You can download it today.

iOS: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/hackney-compare-rideshares/id6...

Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=app.hackney

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48893550

Points: 60

# Comments: 47

New comment by griffinli in "I made my phone slow on purpose"

griffinli — Mon, 01 Jun 2026 21:31:05 +0000

What's your Android method? I use Apple Configurator too.

Alloy: Moddable on Pebble

griffinli — Fri, 20 Feb 2026 18:05:43 +0000

Article URL: https://www.moddable.com/blog/pebble/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47091501

Points: 2

# Comments: 0

CloudPebble Returns Plus New Pure JavaScript and Round 2 SDK

griffinli — Fri, 20 Feb 2026 18:01:25 +0000

Article URL: https://repebble.com/blog/cloudpebble-returns-plus-pure-javascript-and-round-2-sdk

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47091451

Points: 3

# Comments: 0

How to save money on Uber and Lyft

griffinli — Sun, 07 Dec 2025 20:22:45 +0000

Article URL: https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2025/12/01/uber-lyft-price-saving/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46184789

Points: 2

# Comments: 0

Apple restricts Pebble from being awesome with iPhones

griffinli — Tue, 18 Mar 2025 16:23:21 +0000

Article URL: https://ericmigi.com/blog/apple-restricts-pebble-from-being-awesome-with-iphones/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43401245

Points: 1678

# Comments: 1106

Two new PebbleOS watches

griffinli — Tue, 18 Mar 2025 15:59:27 +0000

Article URL: https://ericmigi.com/blog/introducing-two-new-pebbleos-watches/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43400989

Points: 1658

# Comments: 525

Apple Introduces M4 Pro and M4 Max

griffinli — Wed, 30 Oct 2024 15:02:09 +0000

Article URL: https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2024/10/apple-introduces-m4-pro-and-m4-max/

Hacker News: griffinli

New comment by griffinli in "Is this the end of the once-mighty GoPro?"

New comment by griffinli in "Show HN: Hackney – Compare Uber, Lyft, Waymo, and Robotaxi Prices"

New comment by griffinli in "Show HN: Hackney – Compare Uber, Lyft, Waymo, and Robotaxi Prices"

New comment by griffinli in "Show HN: Hackney – Compare Uber, Lyft, Waymo, and Robotaxi Prices"

New comment by griffinli in "Show HN: Hackney – Compare Uber, Lyft, Waymo, and Robotaxi Prices"

New comment by griffinli in "Show HN: Hackney – Compare Uber, Lyft, Waymo, and Robotaxi Prices"

New comment by griffinli in "Show HN: Hackney – Compare Uber, Lyft, Waymo, and Robotaxi Prices"

New comment by griffinli in "Show HN: Hackney – Compare Uber, Lyft, Waymo, and Robotaxi Prices"

New comment by griffinli in "Show HN: Hackney – Compare Uber, Lyft, Waymo, and Robotaxi Prices"

New comment by griffinli in "Show HN: Hackney – Compare Uber, Lyft, Waymo, and Robotaxi Prices"

New comment by griffinli in "Show HN: Hackney – Compare Uber, Lyft, Waymo, and Robotaxi Prices"

Show HN: Hackney – Compare Uber, Lyft, Waymo, and Robotaxi Prices

New comment by griffinli in "I made my phone slow on purpose"

Alloy: Moddable on Pebble

CloudPebble Returns Plus New Pure JavaScript and Round 2 SDK

How to save money on Uber and Lyft

Apple restricts Pebble from being awesome with iPhones

Two new PebbleOS watches

Apple Introduces M4 Pro and M4 Max

TrollStore Installer for iOS 17.0