- Waze's new button allows for faster navigation to favorite spots
- The recent update follows a general update of the user interface
- Speed bump alerts and lane-merging notifications also now feature
Waze has long been a firm favorite with motorists thanks to its early use of crowd-sourced data for the most up-to-date travel information and accurate route guidance. Granted, the likes of Google and Apple Maps have now caught up but it remains a popular app for Android Auto and Apple CarPlay users.
If you use the latter, you’ll find that Waze has quietly updated its Apple CarPlay user experience so the interface not only looks cleaner and more modern, but is also now easier to use thanks to a shuffling around of key functionality.
A shortcut for favorite or most-visited destinations now sits on the right-hand side of the main screen, just beneath the search button, before navigation commences. This makes it much easier to get routing to a home or office address with a couple of prods.
It's smart too, as this favorites hot key will adapt depending on the time of day and predicted driving behavior. For example, one press of the button in the morning will navigate directly to the office if that’s part of your routine. Similarly, it will navigate back home in the evenings.
The auto-hiding bar at the very top of the display now features a favorites button (for manually inputting and managing addresses), as well as notification volume and voice-enabled search.
However, during navigation, search functionality is now housed in this auto-hiding bar, so it requires a click to open when driving, which can be frustrating.
In addition to the user experience updates, Waze also recently announced a raft of new features, including speed bump alerts and notifications of upcoming dangerous curves or sharp corners, which adds to its existing community-based features that handily mark out obstructions or disruptions along the route.
On top of this, the Waze UX also now offers merging lane notifications, which sees all appropriate lanes appear on the map with an indication of the correct lane to be in to safely continue a journey.
Your Waze are numbered
It is no coincidence that Google Maps has started to feel a lot more like Waze in recent years, with the tech giant adding things like user-generated hazard alerts and cute interchangeable icons to its own mapping service since it purchased the company for $1.3billion in 2013.
While Waze was once the go-to application for real-time traffic notifications and almost instantaneous alerts concerning nearby congestion or accidents, Google Maps has now caught up and the fact it has the might of Google behind it means that it is altogether the more powerful tool for navigating to obscure restaurants or places of interest.
What’s more, many automotive manufacturers are now running Android Automotive as the infotainment OS of choice, allowing said carmaker to introduce vehicle-specific information to Google Maps.
This is especially important for electric vehicles, where remaining battery range and the proximity of nearby chargers, the price per kilowatt and live status (lots of them don’t work) is essential for stress-free journeys.
Despite this, Waze users have increased tenfold since the Google acquisition in 2013, according to an interview with its founder in Forbes, indicating that it remains extremely popular with Android Auto and Apple CarPlay users in general.
But for how long Google will continue to allow its developers to work on and introduce new functionality is anyone’s guess.
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