Photo: Google forums
The best thing about Waze is the crowdsourcing engine that makes it incredibly accurate whenever it comes to finding faster routes to a user-defined destination.
Thanks to reports submitted by other users and data collected from the phones where the app is running, Waze’s routing system can avoid locations where slowdowns are taking place and therefore help drivers reach destinations faster and more conveniently.
To do its magic, Waze must have permanent Internet access, as this is the only way to download up-to-date data and receive new reports in real-time.
But this system sometimes proves to be a double-edged sword, with a recent glitch that’s seemingly becoming more widespread serving as living proof.
Reports online reveal that Waze fails to load the maps for a growing number of Android users, as the app gets stuck to a “Just a sec” screen shortly after launch. The application is actually trying to load the maps with the latest traffic conditions, but it obviously fails to do so, making it impossible for users to launch the navigation.
Samsung smartphones are most often encountering the bug, but it looks like this behavior isn’t necessarily exclusive to devices manufactured by the South Korean company. Other phones, including from brands like Huawei and Motorola, end up with the same “Just a sec” message on the screen, once again unable to load the app.
Needless to say, this unexpected behavior shows once again that offline support would come in handy not only when a data connection isn’t available but also when encountering problems with downloading the maps.
Nevertheless, while Waze doesn’t feature built-in offline support for navigation, you can still get step-by-step directions with a very simple trick. On the other hand, this doesn’t help deal with bugs like the one described here, so this time, it’s up to the Google-owned company entirely to bring everything back to normal.
To do its magic, Waze must have permanent Internet access, as this is the only way to download up-to-date data and receive new reports in real-time.
But this system sometimes proves to be a double-edged sword, with a recent glitch that’s seemingly becoming more widespread serving as living proof.
Reports online reveal that Waze fails to load the maps for a growing number of Android users, as the app gets stuck to a “Just a sec” screen shortly after launch. The application is actually trying to load the maps with the latest traffic conditions, but it obviously fails to do so, making it impossible for users to launch the navigation.
Samsung smartphones are most often encountering the bug, but it looks like this behavior isn’t necessarily exclusive to devices manufactured by the South Korean company. Other phones, including from brands like Huawei and Motorola, end up with the same “Just a sec” message on the screen, once again unable to load the app.
Needless to say, this unexpected behavior shows once again that offline support would come in handy not only when a data connection isn’t available but also when encountering problems with downloading the maps.
Nevertheless, while Waze doesn’t feature built-in offline support for navigation, you can still get step-by-step directions with a very simple trick. On the other hand, this doesn’t help deal with bugs like the one described here, so this time, it’s up to the Google-owned company entirely to bring everything back to normal.
Google News