Waze is community-based satellite navigation map. Waze reports and alerts are real-time. Traffic accidents, vehicles on the shoulder, police presence, cameras and more are reported and alerts pop as you enter the area. The Waze community in your driving area assists with these pop alerts.
If someone reports something, a pop-up appears, asking you to confirm or deny the vehicle on the shoulder or police in the area — you’d then click ‘There’ or ‘Not There’ and the info quickly updates, as needed, for the nearby Waze driving community. Also, community-edited corrections to the Waze map are live within 24 hrs.
My favorite is the Reports. You can report a traffic jams, police hazards, accidents and more — a few taps and a report is out to all Waze users in the area. You can vent in the reporting tool as you sit in bumper-to-bumper traffic!
Navigation is a dream with the turn-by-turn directions, which allows for hands-free driving. One appreciable aspect is Waze’s intuitive rerouting. If Waze finds a quicker alternative route to your destination, a Waze pop-up will appear and announce that an alternative route has been found and how much time you will save. Waze also displays eateries, gas prices, government offices, road closures, hospitals, etc.
In today’s urban landscape, different modes of transportation are used during trips. Alas, Waze does not have a walking/biking mode (like Google has), so no info on public transportation and bikeways is available. I use Waze in the car on my iPad or iPhone and hop onto Google maps once I reach my destination.
Waze is free in the App Store, and the Waze app is also available for Android devices.
Changes are coming, though. Google just recently purchased Waze for a reported $1 billion, and has begun integration of many Waze features into its own maps. Apple just recently purchased Embark, which is known for its mass transit info. The map war continues, and I believe that we, the driving populace, will benefit greatly from these recent purchases.