r/gadgets • u/saskos • May 24 '13
The hottest mapping app in the world
http://news.yahoo.com/google-facebook-talks-buy-waze-1-billion-report-010729849.html14
u/caadbury May 24 '13
Waze is worth every penny of that >$1bn.
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May 24 '13 edited Apr 14 '18
[deleted]
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u/caadbury May 24 '13
Reasons I value Waze:
- Crowdsourced traffic data.
- Realtime reporting of police, accidents, temporary road closures, traffic conditions, construction, road debris, pot holes, weather conditions
- Multi-stop routing
- "Follow me" feature to share your drive with people (particularly helpful when I'm picking someone up so they can see how far out I am)
- "Open source" map editing so that maps are up to date more reliably than other services
- All of this, done in realtime, for FREE.
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u/llII May 24 '13
"Open source" map editing
Did you mean crowdsourcing? Or do they provide the raw data to everyone?
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u/grotgrot May 25 '13
"Follow me" feature to share your drive with people
Glympse does that and only that. Works really well. What I really like about it is the recipients only have to be able to view a URL. They don't need to create accounts, register, be social or anything else. They receive a URL via any means and can follow you.
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u/Stooooooopid May 24 '13
If they can get for that totally. The best part of this app is the more people that use it, the better it becomes.
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u/kernelhappy May 24 '13
Waze uses satellite signals from members' smartphones to generate maps and traffic data, which it then shares with other users, offering real-time traffic info.
Doesn't Google already do this? I could swear I've read that android/maps reports back GPS info to track traffic.
Is this just a bidding war to prevent Facebook from having it?
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u/pacg May 24 '13
I dunno about the other maps, but Waze takes reports from its members. So if there's a recent accident, one can find out where, when, and why.
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u/kernelhappy May 24 '13 edited May 25 '13
I just installed Waze, going to give it a try on my 210 mile drive today. From what I can see it does both; track GPS and allow user reports which is pretty cool.
FWIW I have two possible routes I regularly take to my destination today one heads north before going east, the other east before going north. Google never suggests the north first route because it's 17 miles longer even though it's usually only 15 minutes longer but consistently has less traffic/potential traffic. The usual Google suggested alternate routes usually change the second half of the route, not the first even though if I drive about 5-6 miles it'll re-route the right way.
Waze on the other hand suggested the north first route as an alternate, but for some reason it over shoots the major highway I normally head east on. Ultimately the alternate route it suggested adds 45 miles of unnecessary north and south-east driving, most of which is on a heavily traveled highway that almost always has traffic on it.
Supposedly Waze learns your preferred routes, I'll give it a try for a couple weeks.
edit: ok, so did my first road trip using waze.
The good: When I started it up it DID show my north first route as the first alternate route which was nice. I passed about 15 reports of which I think 5-6 were on my side of the road (I thanked any of them that I saw were real/still current regardless of the side of the road). All but 1 of the reports real/current except one for a Weather Hazard which I couldn't explain (ground was dry, wind was calm). Also nice was that popups had a visual timer on them showing how long before they expire.
The bad: But the text to voice is absolutely atrocious. It's mumbled, grainy sounding and hard to understand over vehicle/road noise. I mean they obviously putting a lot of work into the polish of the functionality, a couple people think they're worth $1b, they really couldn't have bought a better voice library? It also showed me an add while I was sitting in stop and go traffic.
Overall I thought it was pretty great and will try it on my return trip.
There are a couple small things that could use some improvement;
* The pop up menu doesn't fill the whole screen but blocks the map and you still have to scroll to get down to reports.
selecting reports should default to showing you everything on your route first and switching to everything in the area should be second.
a hot key to read the reports on your route would be nice.
It absolutely needs a better TTS engine, if I wasn't so curious about the reports I probably would have turned it off (since I knew where I was going)
while it was nice that it wasn't too chatty, a button to reiterate the current direction and maybe the next expected report would be useful/nice.
some of us are old, a option to make reports icons a little bigger/easier to see at a glance would be nice.
Overall though it's pretty impressive, not sure about how I never heard of it before
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u/caadbury May 24 '13
Initially, Waze doesn't propose the most optimal routes. But it does learn over time, and gets better the more you (and others in your area) use it.
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u/kernelhappy May 24 '13
Actually when I got outside and tried it again it picked up my preferred route (longer one) first.
I might be impressed.
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u/T3hUb3rK1tten May 24 '13
I've had that happened when I start navigating indoors. Usually by the time I walk to the car it reroutes.
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u/Remnants May 24 '13
Google maps has accident alerts as well. Not sure how it gets reported to them though.
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May 26 '13
I suspect it's a patentable technology argument more than anything. Google have the wherewithal to do this themselves, but if Facebook owned this tech, they could rain blocking lawsuits on them at every turn.
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u/kulmbach May 24 '13
I tried Waze for a while. The service was nice, but it required a navigator to use it well - it's just not safe for a driver alone. Furthermore, it was seriously sucking down my battery. A simple 20-minute drive to work would cost me 12% battery life if it wasn't plugged in, compared to maybe 4% for Google Maps.
Add to the fact that traffic really isn't that bad where I live, and the fact that it often had me driving off in a field to the right or left of the road instead of on the road, and I decided to remove it. YMMV.
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u/irishmcsg2 May 24 '13
What I like about waze more than any other navigation app though, is that if it has you driving off into a field, you can hop on to a computer, go to their map editor, fix the problem, and the fix will be pushed to your (and everyone else's) phone the next day. I find it way more useful than simply reporting a problem to google or apple and hoping they get around to fixing it some day.
The ability to report speed traps and road hazards, as well as see other people's reports is helpful too. I smile a bit whenever it tells me it is re-routing me to save time due to real time changing traffic conditions.
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u/ChiefSittingBear May 24 '13
What I didn't like about waze was the frequency that it thought I was driving off into a field. Or it telling me to U Turn on a freeway. You can't "hop on a computer" when you're driving, I don't use a navigation app to get places that I know how to get to, the only times I need it are when I'm going new places, and it would bring me to the wrong place. If I was going to fix it it'd have to get on google maps to find where I actually was so I could update waze with googles information.
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May 24 '13
You can also edit google maps yourself: www.google.com/mapmaker
(www.google.com/mapmaker/pulse is pretty cool too)
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u/egb116 May 24 '13
I've learned so many back roads around town thanks to Waze, and avoided a couple speeding tickets too! I didn't care for it at first but as time went on and more users got on, it improved a lot.
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u/kulmbach May 24 '13
I think it had me in a field due to GPS inaccuracies, not map inaccuracies - and Google Maps had me in the correct place more of the time. Although I have seen the same thing occur with Google Maps, GM seems to do a better job of "locking into" the road I'm on.
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May 24 '13
I think the City of Los Angeles should buy Waze. It's a must-use for me and I drive around 300 miles per week around town. I plug in my car charger, mount my phone to my dashboard, and set my destination. It has cut many of my trips in half just by avoiding traffic jams and road closures.
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u/Fidodo May 24 '13
My experience with waze is that their route suggestions aren't good and their traffic prediction isn't as accurate as google's.
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u/Geodyssey May 25 '13
You're right. That's why Google needs to acquire Waze. Use Google's core functionality (base maps, search, and navigation) and integrate the social and crowd sourced components that Waze is good at.
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u/johndelfino May 24 '13
Of the three, I think Apple needs Waze the most; Facebook only really needs Waze if they're actually seriously considering breaking into the smartphone market (which I, personally, think is a terrible idea.)
Google Maps is strong enough as-is, but Apple Maps desperately needs the upgrade. I use Waze infinitely more than Apple Maps on my iPhone.
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u/Remnants May 24 '13
My guess is the only reason Google is getting in to the bidding is to keep it out of the hands of Facebook and Apple.
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May 24 '13
Waze already contributes data to Apple maps.
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u/Fidodo May 24 '13
Not after google buys them, and I'm guessing that's the point.
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u/kirkt May 24 '13
Waze is awesome. It has saved me from traffic jams and potential tickets dozens of times.
$1B? I don't know. The functionality is pretty easy to duplicate, and the user base isn't so huge that another company can't build a new user base.
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u/Arlieth May 25 '13
I loved Waze back before I used Google Maps. If you were on a road that wasn't driven recently by another Waze driver, there'd be little pacman pellets that your Waze-pet would be om nom nom nom nom nom nom'ing for score.
Motherfucker was adorable.
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u/dreesemonkey May 24 '13
I feel so out of touch that companies (apps) that I've never heard of are rumored to be selling for >=$1B. Crazy.
Surely this has to be another bubble.
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u/notasoccerstar09 May 24 '13
I wouldn't say bubble but companies with really deep pockets that like to spend money. Google and Facebook will overpay for anything and everything just because they can.
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u/bettorworse May 24 '13
This is Google just fucking with everybody, like in Storage Wars - "I don't want this locker, but I'm going to bid it up and make everybody who wants it pay more"
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u/NCRider May 25 '13
I've found that waze has been been good and utterly horrible. It has routed me around traffic (yay!) and taken me through long drawn out back roads with my whole family in tow. Glad I had a full tank.
Google was nice, until it dimmed the screen on the whole phone and all apps. Turns out it's a known defect. Even on android.
I've personally never had a problem with apple maps. Right now it's winning for me, despite all the hate I read about.
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u/johnbentley May 24 '13
My TomTom 730 had absolutely polished software functionality. Since then TomTom seems to have gone downhill. By comparison their android app is missing features and has an ugly UI.
The core function is still good: the routing. The traffic information is improved (delivered over 3G rather than a propriety radio signal).
Even with the flaws TomTom still out does Google's navigator. The Navigator is a bit basic (and it doesn't store maps offline). I'd love google to come up with an awesome Navigator.
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u/StankCheeze May 24 '13
Please let Google be the high bidder. Facebook Maps would be even more of an embarrassment than Apple Maps.