New Waze Update Patches the Most Horrible CarPlay Bug in a Long Time

If you're not new to the Waze world and have been using the app on CarPlay, you probably know already that the experience in the car has been ridden with bugs.

The most recent glitch appeared in early August when Waze shipped version 4.97 to iOS devices. The update was supposed to introduce additional bug fixes but caused a new problem breaking down the dark mode.

Due to this behavior, Waze ignored the dark visual style for the map, keeping the daytime mode even when navigating at night. You can imagine that using a light visual style at night is pretty annoying, but what's worse is that it makes driving with Waze on the screen more dangerous. A screen throwing a flood of white light at you could cause one or two seconds of blindness, so paying attention to the road isn't as easy as with a dark interface.

The widespread bug could be resolved by manually launching Waze on the iPhone. The application then instructed the CarPlay interface to switch to night mode completely.

A new update now available for download from the App Store resolves the glitch, allowing Waze to use the correct visual style according to the time of day (and the headlight status in the car). The new version is 4.98.

The Google-owned company explains in the changelog that it also corrected a bug that caused the application to misread road names when voice navigation was enabled.

Meanwhile, Waze has many other problems to fix, and the lack of communication between the parent company and the user community seems to cause more frustration, eventually pushing more people to alternative products like Google Maps.

Speculation surrounding a potential Waze demise keeps getting traction, with more people believing the slow update pace and the lack of response, even in the case of widespread bugs, could be signs that Google plans to integrate the app into Google Maps. The search giant originally promised to let Waze run independently, but some of the company's latest decisions suggested that a potential merger isn't entirely out of the table.

Google moved the Google Maps and Waze teams into the same building. By bringing them under the same roof, the two applications can get updates more efficiently, sources familiar with the matter said. However, the strategy could also pave the way for Google Maps to absorb Waze gradually. Earlier this year, Google moved Waze to Google Ads, laying off the Waze marketing team.