Social Bicycles bike sharing system powered by iPhone app to hit NYC this fall
By Laura June 
posted August 11th 2010 9:41PM
posted August 11th 2010 9:41PM
posted August 11th 2010 9:41PM
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http://www.socialbicycles.com/design/
After reading all that, I'd rather buy my own bike. Privacy, my own security, and ability to ride after 9pm and ability to lock up where I want whenever I want. No dynamo that can fail, no lock that can fail, no number pad that can fail, no bike that prevents me fixing a puncture myself. No electronics. No late fees, no personal information-collecting registration, nothing else...
I suppose this is good for people that are visitors to a city and/or that don't want to bring their own bike somewhere.
You can have man hunts after 9pm. Just think if they put out a bounty for bikes that are my returned.
@emopoops Next time watch the video. The main authorization method is a keypad on the lockbox. The smartphone app is simply for convenience.
so Android users dont ride bikes too? At this rate forget about dumb phone users too...they're probably too dumb to ride a bike. smh
@bySeon
Too fat to ride bikes. These droid-heads just sit at home all day and stuff their faces with potato chips and hating the iPhone.
@JonObea
Handheld propane torch. Bolt cutter.
Bike on ebay.
Done.
These things are always a waste of taxpayer money. They've had this system in place in the Madison, Wisconsin downtown since before I was born. At least then there was no GPS lock or programming involved so there was no real expense. The bikes were all just "donated" by being painted red and left in the street for anyone to pick up and use.
The problem is that these bikes were always trashy and hardly worked, or they were truly destroyed beyond use. Fact of the matter is that people don't respect that which they do not own. You see it all the time, people defiling or doing things in a public space that they would never consider doing in their own home or on their own property.
Now that they are incorporating a GPS locking system and a developer to create and maintain the program, they are involving tax payer money on something that is going to prove as bad as the red bike system in Madison. The first thing you will see is thieves trying to rip the GPS system off the bikes and find a way to sell it however possible, destroying the bike in the process, I'm sure.
Sorry, I haven't read through all the post, but this doesnt seem like a new concept at all. There is a service in germany call a bike and it does the exact same thing.
It does also have an iPhone app and its been around for at least the better part of two years. I will look for a good link and post here...
There is a youtube video explaning the concept....its in German however....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YCX0nuNFkvM&feature=player_embedded
Well, you need a good system for that kind of bike sharing, like Bixi in Montréal or Vélib in Paris.
You pay for a yearly subscription (29€ in Paris) and then you can use your Subway card to unlock a bike at a station, it's free for half an hour and after that, it's 1€ for the half hour. But, its always possible to change bike after half an hour.
They have stations everywhere in town and an iPhone app that tells you how manys bikes there are at each one and how many free parking spot there are too...
Vélib
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vélib'
i heard five minutes later the front wheel on this bike was stolen.....