Food delivery app Tapingo receiving mixed reviews

Tapingo, a food delivery and takeout mobile app debuted on USF’s campus at the beginning of the 2016 spring semester and is gaining steam among some students.

The app, created by a Harvard graduate, allows you to satisfy the desire to skip a long line and be served before everyone else. USF Dining has gotten on board with the service, making USF one of 125 college campuses using Tapingo, including the University of Miami, New York University and Santa Clara University.

Promotion for the app was minimal on campus but bright yellow flyers, cards and standing banners started popping up at various food locations on the USF campus such as Subway, Pollo Tropical, Boar’s Head, Beef O’ Brady’s and Starbucks.

Student have mixed reviews about the apps usefulness on a commuter campus like USF.  The app requires users to connect their credit or debit cards in order to make preordered purchases. It also allows USF student to buy use their bull bucks.

Freshmen Valeria Zaiter, a biomedical sciences major and commuter student Thayanne DaSilva don’t find the app as convenient as it was expected to be. Zaiter was one of many students who did not know what the Tapingo was despite their promotional efforts.

“People buy from instantaneous urge instead of planning,” Zaiter said.

Dasilva argued that the wait time for food on campus is not long enough to warrant using the app.

The Tapingo app doesn’t work for some location on campus like the Subway in Cooper Hall and the delivery feature of the app is not yet available to USF students.

Students like freshman computer engineering major Nesha Shamsuddin uses the app sporadically but has said she would have used it more if they delivered.

“I have classes back to back,” said Shamsuddin “So while I’m in class I just order it so I can get to class on time.”

Some students find the app convenient and easy to use. Freshman psychology major Sophia Escalante lives on campus and has used the app at least once a week to spend her bull bucks. She finds it more convenient to preorder her food using Tapingo than going to the dining hall to pick it up.

 Escalante has recommended Tapingo to many of her coworkers and has also expressed her desire for Tapingo to deliver to students.