Photo: autoevolution
Waze is, without a doubt, one of the most popular navigation solutions across the world, and what makes it truly special is the crowdsourcing engine that allows users to contribute with traffic reports.
In other words, users out there can let others know what is happening on the road by flagging the location of things like speed traps, traffic jams, roadkill, and accidents on Waze.
Furthermore, based on this data and other information collected from phones where Waze is running, the app’s complex algorithms can look for faster routes to a user-defined destination, therefore being able to get you to the destination by avoiding the regions that could slow you down.
On the other hand, it’s not a secret that Waze needs more refinements, and the app’s current behavior on iOS 16 is just living proof. I and others online spotted several problems hitting Waze on a fully up-to-date iPhone, including occasional overheating.
However, the Google-owned company has something else to focus on, it seems. Waze recently announced a new set of four in-app navigation voices that are specifically aimed at users in the United Kingdom.
The “Drive like a Manc” experience in Waze is supposed to provide users with a Manchester dialect, so the app will no longer tell you to do a U-turn but to “do a U-y, mate, take it easy.”
At some level, these updates are pretty exciting, given they make Waze feel, well, more natural, but there are two things that everybody must keep in mind.
First, these goodies are only available for a limited time. Waze hasn’t provided more information as to when it plans to pull the new voices, but it should happen in a few weeks. And second, there are other more important things to take care of in Waze, including the overall stability and reliability of the app, both on mobile devices and on Android Auto and CarPlay.
Furthermore, based on this data and other information collected from phones where Waze is running, the app’s complex algorithms can look for faster routes to a user-defined destination, therefore being able to get you to the destination by avoiding the regions that could slow you down.
On the other hand, it’s not a secret that Waze needs more refinements, and the app’s current behavior on iOS 16 is just living proof. I and others online spotted several problems hitting Waze on a fully up-to-date iPhone, including occasional overheating.
However, the Google-owned company has something else to focus on, it seems. Waze recently announced a new set of four in-app navigation voices that are specifically aimed at users in the United Kingdom.
The “Drive like a Manc” experience in Waze is supposed to provide users with a Manchester dialect, so the app will no longer tell you to do a U-turn but to “do a U-y, mate, take it easy.”
At some level, these updates are pretty exciting, given they make Waze feel, well, more natural, but there are two things that everybody must keep in mind.
First, these goodies are only available for a limited time. Waze hasn’t provided more information as to when it plans to pull the new voices, but it should happen in a few weeks. And second, there are other more important things to take care of in Waze, including the overall stability and reliability of the app, both on mobile devices and on Android Auto and CarPlay.
Google News