Today, we’re announcing two new features that help make your pickup even more seamless when using the Uber app: a redesign that delivers greater focus and transparency into your ride’s arrival status, and a language translation feature designed to make it easier for you to communicate with a driver that’s en route or arrived. We’ve all had pickups that don’t always go as planned, but these updates provide even more peace of mind whether you’re headed home, commuting to work, or meeting friends for an evening out. 

The redesign will now present a sequence of rotating, actionable notifications regarding your pickup: the remaining minutes before it arrives, where you should meet a driver, where to walk toward, and helpful instructions navigating an airport, arena, or event venue. We built this so riders can feel even more confident tracking the status of their trip, in addition to monitoring a driver’s progress within the Uber app map screen.

We’ve also made the in-app text more comprehensible and visible when a driver is nearing arrival, so his/her/their first name, license plate detail, car color/make/model more prominently appears. And coming soon, when your trip is about to conclude, you’ll also receive reminders about safely exiting the vehicle in the redesigned experience.

It’s important to note that every safety feature previously available in-app will still be available in this redesigned update. This updated experience will appear when you request Uber Pool, UberX, Comfort, Black / Black SUV, or Uber XL trips, rolling out to all riders around the world in the coming days. 

It’s also important for riders and drivers to be able to clearly communicate with each other.  That’s why we’re rolling out a helpful translation tool so you and a driver can more easily stay in touch as your ride is en route or arriving. 

Previously, the message text sent from a driver to a rider would appear in that driver’s language preference. For example, a driver’s Spanish language preference would result in Spanish text being displayed to a rider (and vice-versa), regardless if this was the rider’s preferred language. This new feature lets a rider (or driver) tap to instantly translate a message into their preferred language, across 100+ supported languages.

This feature was built for situations in which a driver or rider maintains different preferred languages, or when English is a secondary language. We anticipate this being most helpful for drivers whose primary language isn’t English, and for riders that are traveling abroad outside the U.S. Translation is available for pre-generated messages, and for any written message sent between a rider and driver. 

In-app translations are globally available starting today.