Photo: Bogdan Popa/autoevolution
Waze has become a must-have application not only for daily commutes, when everybody wants to find a faster route to the office, but also for long trips.
The crowdsourcing engine at the heart of Waze makes the road significantly more predictable, as it alerts drivers about what happens on their routes in advance. Speed traps, potholes, accidents, traffic jams, and more are all available on Waze and reported by other motorists.
On the other hand, it's not a secret that Waze hasn't been working flawlessly lately, as the application has become that buggy thing that many users would gladly replace if they found an alternative. Sure enough, Waze is a rare beast, and despite attempts to build a similar navigation app, most companies decided to stick with basic implementations.
Fortunately, the Google-owned company is working non-stop on refining the experience with the app, and this is also the purpose of the latest iOS update.
Published on the App Store as version 4.95, the new Waze version fixes a bug to help improve the navigation experience. The company explains that in some cases, the car icon went missing when the "keep map north up" mode was active. It's not hard to imagine how frustrating it can be to no longer see the car icon, as figuring out where you are would be much harder.
The car icon is there for a good reason, as it indicates your location on the map and updates it as you drive. As such, if the car icon becomes invisible, using a navigation app is close to impossible.
Waze says this latest update fixes the weird behavior, so the car icon is now always visible on the map when the north up mode is active.
Other than that, Waze 4.95 seems to be light on changes, as the parent company focused mostly on bug fixes and under-the-hood improvements.
As for those other attempts to compete against Waze, the most advanced alternative right now is probably Coyote. Apple also invested in incident reporting, but Apple Maps users can also mark the location of accidents, speed traps, and other hazards. Furthermore, the adoption of Apple's new feature is poor, to say the least, as you rarely come across a traffic report on Apple Maps. This isn't necessarily surprising, as many Apple Maps users prefer switching to Google Maps and Waze anyway, as the feature gap between the native navigation app and its competitors is more than obvious.
You can download the latest Waze update from the App Store right now, and if you have automatic updates enabled on your phone, chances are the new version is already on your iPhone. The smartphone powers the CarPlay version, so you won't have to do anything on the car's side.
On the other hand, it's not a secret that Waze hasn't been working flawlessly lately, as the application has become that buggy thing that many users would gladly replace if they found an alternative. Sure enough, Waze is a rare beast, and despite attempts to build a similar navigation app, most companies decided to stick with basic implementations.
Fortunately, the Google-owned company is working non-stop on refining the experience with the app, and this is also the purpose of the latest iOS update.
Published on the App Store as version 4.95, the new Waze version fixes a bug to help improve the navigation experience. The company explains that in some cases, the car icon went missing when the "keep map north up" mode was active. It's not hard to imagine how frustrating it can be to no longer see the car icon, as figuring out where you are would be much harder.
The car icon is there for a good reason, as it indicates your location on the map and updates it as you drive. As such, if the car icon becomes invisible, using a navigation app is close to impossible.
Waze says this latest update fixes the weird behavior, so the car icon is now always visible on the map when the north up mode is active.
Other than that, Waze 4.95 seems to be light on changes, as the parent company focused mostly on bug fixes and under-the-hood improvements.
As for those other attempts to compete against Waze, the most advanced alternative right now is probably Coyote. Apple also invested in incident reporting, but Apple Maps users can also mark the location of accidents, speed traps, and other hazards. Furthermore, the adoption of Apple's new feature is poor, to say the least, as you rarely come across a traffic report on Apple Maps. This isn't necessarily surprising, as many Apple Maps users prefer switching to Google Maps and Waze anyway, as the feature gap between the native navigation app and its competitors is more than obvious.
You can download the latest Waze update from the App Store right now, and if you have automatic updates enabled on your phone, chances are the new version is already on your iPhone. The smartphone powers the CarPlay version, so you won't have to do anything on the car's side.
Google News