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Zipcar announces upcoming iPhone app

by Michael Rose Jul 15th 2009 at 4:00PM



If you're a car-free urbanite you've probably seen mention of Zipcar, or noticed one of their branded vehicles out and about. The company offers hourly rental automobiles with a rapid-deployment twist: there's no check-in or checkout process beyond reserving the time online and then swiping your membership card to unlock the car. The vehicles even include gas cards so you can fill up for free while you're on the road. Members are mostly enthusiastic about the convenience and ease of the service; soon, of course, there'll be an app for that.

Zipcar's newsletter and website have announced that the company's iPhone app will be coming soon, and the landing page offers an email signup to be notified when it ships. The promised feature set is a bit lean at the moment, but intriguing: find and reserve cars from the phone, plus the ability to unlock or lock the car from the app. Since the current Zipcar membership cards use RFID chips for the lock sensor, it's not quite clear how the app will accomplish the same trick -- GPS geolocation combined with a secure server connection? Wi-Fi or Bluetooth to the car's sensor? Can't wait to find out.

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If you're a car-free urbanite you've probably seen mention of Zipcar, or noticed one of their branded vehicles out and about. The company...
 

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Francesco Caporusso

Zipcar is a decent enough service and if I still had it I would be really happy to have an app like this.

Word of caution: Zipcar will renew your membership every year without warning you. Some people I know disputed it with them and they wouldn't refund the charge. Also, trying to cancel my membership was very difficult as they bury the way to do so in the FAQs (and not anywhere obvious). I would have hoped for a button on the membership status page, but I guess you make more money by not easily allowing people to cancel.

July 15 2009 at 5:30 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Marc Luoma

I live in DC and use Zipcar when I need four-wheeled transport (not often). The best thing is they're scattered all over the city. I never have to walk more than 15 minutes to get to one. The iPhone app will help if I'm out and about and decide I need a car before I get back to a computer.

July 15 2009 at 4:35 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
emil

The Zipcar staff has always the ability to unlock cars remotely (in case you lose your card, for example), so I suspect the iPhone is just tapping into this functionality through the web. I didn't know they could make the horn honk though, that's pretty neat.

July 15 2009 at 4:34 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Macopotamus

TUAW even reported this at the time of WWDC...

http://www.tuaw.com/2009/06/08/wwdc-2009-keynote-meta-liveblog/

Is there anything new in this announcement compared to WWDC?

July 15 2009 at 4:28 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
2 replies to Macopotamus's comment
emil

"Zipcar's newsletter and website have announced that the company's iPhone app will be coming soon, and the landing page offers an email signup to be notified when it ships."

That part is new.

July 15 2009 at 4:34 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Macopotamus

Fair enough...

July 15 2009 at 4:42 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Tim

They demoed this at WWDC. All the ZipCars have a cellular modem installed in them that works with the RFID sensor. Basically what the app does is send the unlock code to the car through its cellular modem.

Oh, and it will also let you honk the horn so you can find the car.

July 15 2009 at 4:23 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
3 replies to Tim's comment
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