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Waze is injecting more personality into your trip with new navigation themes
New themes that completely change the navigation experience.
Waze is perhaps one of the more unique navigation softwares out there, offering a more playful take when it comes to getting you from point A to point B. The app offers a bubbly design, a variety of different voice directions, with some even provided by celebrities, and community features you can't find anywhere else. It looks like Waze is looking to take things further by introducing a new 'Customize Your Drive' option that will completely transform the experience, bringing new sounds, voices, icons, and even moods to the app for your drive to and from home.
Waze makes it easier for EV owners to find compatible charging stations
Waze now includes the ability for drivers to add their EV and charging port type so compatible charging stations are easier to find.
Waze is now making it even easier for EV owners to find charging stations. The app is making this possible by allowing users to enter their vehicle model and plug type into the app to better find compatible charging stations. For those unfamiliar, electric vehicles are not all treated the same when it comes to charging methods, with difference brands using different plugs. This means that if you're traveling and looking to top up, there's a good chance the EV station might not be compatible with your vehicle.
Waze is testing alerts that will warn you when you're on a highway to the danger zone
Waze is testing a new feature that will give drivers a heads-up when they're driving on high-risk accident-prone roads.
Despite Google Maps and Apple Maps usually being front and center when it comes to navigation software, there is a "small" community of users that prefer to use Waze. The navigation app offers plenty of unique properties like navigation instructions spoken by celebrities and probably its best feature, contributions from the community that make the maps better and better every single day. Now it looks like Waze is testing a new feature that could help drivers steer clear of dangerous roads.
Google will merge Waze and Maps teams in an attempt to streamline its business
In an attempt to streamline its business, Google will merge its Waze and Maps teams.
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Over the past few months, numerous companies have either made cuts, or shifted their business strategy in an attempt to readjust and right the ship for the upcoming year. In an effort to consolidate some of its work force, Google will apparently merge its Geo and Waze teams in order cut costs.
Waze will no longer offer its carpooling service
After going live in the United States in 2018, Waze is shutting down its carpooling service. The service will start winding down next month.
Waze is shutting down its carpooling service after launching it in the United States back in 2018. Although the news might seem sudden, the pandemic is to blame, requiring the company to shift its strategy. The firm will begin winding down the service starting in September. The service was available in the U.S., Brazil, and Israel.
Waze now warns you about traffic and detours before you start driving
Waze is updating its traffic notifications feature to provide users with traffic alerts even before they start driving. Read on to learn more.
In September last year, the Waze app received a significant update that introduced several new features like lane guidance, trip suggestions, and traffic notifications. The traffic notifications feature alerted users of traffic issues on their current route, allowing them to look for an alternate route to avoid congestion. With its latest update, Waze is improving the feature to give you even more time to plan an alternate route.
Waze keeps the story going with new Audible integration
Waze has introduced integration with services like Spotify, YouTube Music, and Amazon Music, and now Audible is being added to the list.
Waze has introduced convenient integration with services like Spotify, YouTube Music, and Amazon Music. Now, the navigation app is introducing integration with Audible, so road warriors can keep the story going when traveling to their next destination.
Waze is getting lane guidance, trip suggestions, and traffic notifications
Waze rolls out lane guidance, a feature already available in Google Maps and Apple Maps, and soon trip suggestions and traffic notifications.
People may be driving far less often thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic, but that doesn't mean driving activity has halted completely. As such, there's always room for improvements to navigation apps like Apple Maps, Google Maps, and Waze. At a Waze On event on Tuesday, the Google-owned navigation company detailed a number of new features, including the addition of lane guidance, which we first heard was in testing back in April.
Waze reveals a new logo, bright new colors, and icons
Along with a cleaned-up logo and new wordmark, Waze is getting bright colors and playful in-app icons. This is the service's first big redesign.
New logos are often controversial, but they can mark the start of the revitalization of a service and bring new attention to it. Waze is a service that has been around for a long time, 14 years to be exact, and it's getting its first major brand refresh in a long time. Along with a cleaned-up logo and new wordmark, the service is getting bright colors and playful in-app icons.
Waze is finally testing lane guidance for navigation
Waze has finally started testing lane guidance for navigation in Israel, with plans to release the feature in beta in the coming days.
Google-owned navigation app Waze has improved leaps and bounds over the last few years. The app has received some major updates since its launch, with Google adding highly-requested features like Google Assistant support, a dedicated motorcycle mode, support for 7 new music streaming services, and more. However, despite constant requests from the community, Google has still not added one key feature to the app so far — lane guidance. For the unaware, lane guidance shows graphical representations of lane signs, like freeway exits, to help users decide which lane they should take to reach their destination. The feature is commonly found on dedicated navigation units and, despite several requests from Waze users, Google still hasn't added the feature to the app.
[Update: YouTube Music] Waze adds 7 new streaming services to in-app player
Waze has added 7 new audio streaming services. As of right now, this includes Pandora, Deezer, iHeartRadio, NPR One, Scribd, Stitcher, and TuneIn.
Many, many people have long commutes to work. This mostly happens around metro cities where people wake up and start their drive 2 or even 3 hours before they need to be at work. Rush hour traffic can be incredibly stressful (both going to and coming from work) so listening to some music can help make that time go by faster. Last year, the navigation application Waze announced integration with Spotify, one of, if not the, most popular online streaming music services. The team behind the application has had such a positive response from the community about this feature that they have now added support for 7 new streaming services directly in the application.
Google Maps gets speed camera alerts, route previews in commute notifications
Google Maps is getting alerts for speed cameras, speed limit indicators for more countries, and route previews display in commute notifications.
We've all been in that situation where the road is just too messy and full of vehicles to take your eyes off it - for even a small moment, and Google understands. Google Maps does a great job at making important information easy to see without diverting your eyes for too long. The app recently received some features to make it even handier.
Google Assistant is coming to Waze and getting a new driving mode
One area of Google Assistant that is getting some love is driving and Waze. Assistant is getting a new Driving Mode and integration with Waze.
Google I/O 2019 is running at top speed as announcements are coming in hot. The Google Assistant portion of the event just wrapped up and there were a number of very exciting features show off. One area that is getting some love is driving and Waze. Assistant is getting a new Driving Mode and integration with Waze.
Always-listening Hotword Recognition without power drain may soon come to Android apps with TrulyHandsfree
The newest version of Sensory's TrulyHandsFree, a cross-platform voice recognition suite for iOS and Android, boasts dramatically reduced power consumption.
Ever wonder how smartphones such as the Huawei Mate 9 respond to Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant commands ("Alexa", "OK, Google") even when the screen is switched off and locked? It's thanks to a hardware component called a DSP, or digital signal processor, a dedicated audio chip that handles low-power, always-on phrase detection (and other tasks). It's core to popular voice assistants' functionality. Silicon Valley-based company Sensory says its software-based alternative, TrulyHandsfree, gives DSPs a run for their money.
How to Remove Points of Interest and Advertisements in Waze
Here is how to remove points of interest and advertisements in Waze. Requires the creation of an init.d script, so your phone will need to be rooted.
Waze, for those of you who haven't heard of it, is a community driven traffic and navigation app. It is available for both Android and iOS, and is also now out for Android Auto. It uses real-time data from other users to notify users of traffic, better routes to take, and also provides "points of interest" to the user. These points of interest pop up in balloon form and are basically advertisements for places (and often along side them are actual full-screen advertisements). These advertisements can potentially be dangerous in some cases, distracting a driver and requiring the user to cancel them if they wish to still see the road on the application. As can be seen below, the advertisement fills up the top of the screen and a popup advertises the existence of a nearby McDonalds.
Waze is Now Available on Android Auto, In-Car Units Only
After more than a year, Waze has now been integrated into Android Auto but only through in-car units and not from the phone screen yet.
Over a year ago at Google I/O 2016 we learned that Google was working to integrate Waze into the Android Auto experience. Waze, which was previously acquired by Google, offers features and a UI that some people just prefer over the traditional Google Maps solution. So this news made a lot of people happy but many thought this meant the update would come quick. We're over a year out from that announcement now and the feature is only available via in-car head units.