Taxicabs of the United States area. The president of United Cab discourages his drivers from carrying firearms, instead advising them to accelerate the car and crash into a lamppost or even a police car if they are threatened with a gun. Uber is a major competitor to taxi companies, providing on-demand for-hire car service through a smartphone app in many US cities. Uber services are generally treated as black-car services from a legal standpoint and are not generally regulated under Taxi laws. This can cause friction with both local governments and taxi companies. In June 2015, the city council voted unanimously to increase taxi fares;
Smartphone improving LTE technologies. As of 2015, the global median for smartphone ownership was 43%. Statista forecast that 2.87 billion people would own smartphones in 2020. New trends for smartphone displays began to emerge in 2017, with both LG and Samsung releasing flagship smartphones utilizing displays with taller aspect ratios than the common ratio. These designs allow the display to have a larger diameter, but with a slimmer width than 16:9 displays with an equivalent screen size. Another trend popularized that year were designs—colloquially known as a "notch"—where the front-facing camera, and sometimes other sensors typically located along the top bezel