First experience

[gebonline]

I used the system for the first time this AM during my 35min commute, and have this feedback:
- I tried to report a traffic incident. I wasn't able to, because every time I hit the "Traffic Load" button, the "Chit chat" page opened. I tried 3 or 4 times successively, and got that page every single time, which leads me to believe that there was a bug in the UI (it is now working ok).
- In general, I find the UI often difficult to use because of the lack of feedback when you press (the area should highlight to tell you that you've picked the right line).
- reporting heavy traffic should be more automatic, with possibly an alert offered to the user to simply confirm he is in heavy traffic.
- I find that it should be clearer in the UI that you start/end a commute. I want to preview the traffic info before I leave my desk, to possibly leave later. How does the system know that I'm not driving yet?
- When I'm not driving, I don't want the SW to try to locate me draining the battery using the GPS, as it is right now while I'm sitting at my desk... And no, going to the system settings to turn off GPS is NOT acceptable a workaround. This wouldn't be a problem if there was indeed a "commuting" state.
- the map is pretty ugly. I like the google maps much better, but of course, this might not be an option because of the customization...

That's it for now. I'll keep using it for a few days and see if it become helpful.

-g

[eshabtai]

Hi and thanks for the feedback.

Some comments/answers:
- We'll try to reproduce the reporting issue, but in general we did get feedback that it is hard to choose among the different types of reports. We will probably space them some more so it'll be easier.
- We do provide feedback when you choose something on screen or click on a button - you should see a green fill on the selected area. I guess you missed it (maybe the color is not clear enough?), or somehow it doesn't work for you?
- Traffic analysis is automatic, all you have to do is drive (and keep the app running ). We will soon enable the functionality that prompts you when the system detects a traffic jam you created. You will be able to approve, correct or just ignore the prompt. But in any case even now it's automatic and manual inputs are meant to increase the jam weight (i.e. help our algorithms) and add further information - so they do help!
- While we aim for a commuting application, we are still missing some key features which are planned for the next releases. Among these features are alternative routes and statistics. We are also thinking about adding different modes to the system (such as commute mode as you suggests).
More details on these features will come soon, but basically it should make it much easier to turn on the app and just be able to see stats on your commute route.
- About the map, could you provide some more feedback? Why exactly do you prefer Google's? Please note that we are using gray colors as the map itself is just a background and we'd like to put all the jams, users avatars, events in focus. As the traffic is still low in the US all you get is a gray map... as traffic grows it should look much better.

Thanks again for the feedback.

Ehud.

[gebonline]

thanks for the reply.

- about the Report menu selecting Chit chat rather than Traffic load: I did it again today, and it worked just fine. However, I am still convinced that yesterday it did consistently incorrectly take me to the wrong page. I'm going to guess that some index was off.
- about the colors selecting items: I confirm that it doesn't work for me: start the app, select the close box to get the "Resume manually, resume in 30 seconds, Exit, Cancel" choice list. When I press any of these choices, nothing in the appearance of the list ever changes when I press, stay pressed or release. No feedback at all. Not sure why since you say there should be some, but I tried several times to be sure. When I press the close box, yes, the close box itself highlights in green, but when I select in the list, nothing. All the buttons I tried did provide feedback.
If I select "Events", the list I get does some highlighting, but not correctly: when I press (& stay pressed on purpose to be sure than I'm on the proper location) no highlighting happens. However, when I release or stay pressed too long, the item selected is highlighted in green briefly. That's a bit of feedback, but that's still not what I'm expecting: I need to have immediate highlighting even before the item is effectively triggered as soon as I press it.
BTW, I personally do not like the auto-trigger if you stay pressed: that prevents me from not doing my operation and it is not consistent with the rest of Android. Check the system settings: as soon as you press on an item, it highlights and stays that way as long as you stay pressed. If you start moving, the list moves but the item is not triggered.
- Good to hear about auto traffic load detecting. I'm fine with that. Looking forward to the improvements.
- about Google maps: Colors are OK. I do miss the ability to see where there are no problems on the road and see the direction. Right now for instance, I see a red pin on a road, but I have to look at the details to know in which direction the problem is. Google maps tells me which direction is busy directly at all times, I don't have to zoom/select a red zone to see which direction is affected.

More feedback:
- "Me on map" changes the zoom level: that's annoying when I'm actually trying to see what's ahead of me. IMO, it should center the map only and preserve the zoom level.
- quality of the maps: not very good. My home is not right (300 hundred meters away, wrong block), my office is not right (thinks I'm in Colma when I'm in Daly City).
- routing is poor right now: desperately wants me to drive way out of the shortest path, even when the best path is pretty simple (once, 200 meters away from 101 entrance, it wanted me to drive to the next 101 entrance using a road about 1 km away parallel to 101, before taking me on 101, 101 being free of traffic). Feels pretty broken right now. Can't use that.
- too many "ok" dialogs you have to dismiss. They often are not really necessary. For instance: select a destination, pick "try route" rather than "teach Waze". Then I have to dismiss "Route found". That last dialog is totally useless, except for the distance maybe, but I'd rather you find some other way. I personally love my Garmin's "Where to?" -> "home". That's it: two presses and I'm on my way. The less dialogs, the better. Distance/time to destination? Give me a way to access it anytime if I want to, but don't give me a dialog just for that: I know I work 45 km away from home, you don't need to remind me everytime... ;-(

I hope this helps...
Time to go home!
-g

[eshabtai]

- We couldn't reproduce the mismatch of the report click. Might be a bug but probably hard to catch. If you stumble on it again, let us know and we'll add some debug info to help catching it.
- You're right about the feedback color. It's not consistent and do not appear in some dialogs. We'll improve it.
- I see your point about the direction of events which sometimes requires zooming in to see. Our intension is that main usage of the app would be to set a destination and it should already take into account the jams in your direction and notify you on events as you go along. We still have a way to go before the navigation part can be trusted blindly so I guess for the time being the main use is just browsing the map and looking for events. So I get your point and we'll work on improving that as well.
- "Me on map" indeed does reset the zoom as otherwise we'll need an additional button for resetting the zoom. Could you try turning off the auto-zoom feature and then try "me on map", it might disable the zoom reset (not 100% sure ).
- quality of map: Under report you also have "map updates". In there you have an option to update a street range (house number). When you reach your home, choose that option and just put your house number in. On the next day the system should recalibrate the house numbers and give you a correct location. Same thing about your work place. You can either use the "map updates" to report a problem or try editing the map yourself ("live map" has an update tab). As you drove in the area you automatically get permissions to update anything around it. Note that updates go back to the device after some post processing procedures which currently occur once every night (about midnight PST time).
- Routing: Should improve automatically as you drive with the app. If your drive a certain route the system should learn about it and provide the same route on the next day (unless it thinks it has a better one). If that doesn't work for you it's probably a bug, so please let us know with an approximate departure and destination points.
- Ok dialogs... You're right about that. As the map improves the "teach me / try me" dialog will not appear. The other dialog (distance of route), actually disappears after a 5 seconds timeout, so you can just leave it alone (we do miss a notification that it will disappear automatically).

Thanks again for the feedback, it helps us a lot.

Ehud.

[ariesboy475]

- "Me on map" indeed does reset the zoom as otherwise we'll need an additional button for resetting the zoom. Could you try turning off the auto-zoom feature and then try "me on map", it might disable the zoom reset (not 100% sure ).
.

I tried this. It doesn't work. It still resets to zoom mode. What actually works better, if you like that mode, is using 3D. However, 3D, day/night settings does not seem to get saved beyond that session. It always reset to 2D + Day.

[oreotookie]

Has anybody else had problems with the iPhone app messing up the login if you sign up with waze THROUGH the app (not the website)? It constantly forgot my login and would log me in as "Anonymous". I eventually had to delete the app, reinstall it, login during the set-up, and I haven't had a problem since. Did I mess something up the first time or was it just a bug?

[ariesboy475]

Has anybody else had problems with the iPhone app messing up the login if you sign up with waze THROUGH the app (not the website)? It constantly forgot my login and would log me in as "Anonymous". I eventually had to delete the app, reinstall it, login during the set-up, and I haven't had a problem since. Did I mess something up the first time or was it just a bug?

I think your issue is also discussed here: http://www.waze.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=177

[docdough]

I have noticed that when I ask for alternate routes that are the same for a number of turns, it is impossible to tell the difference because they both say the same thing i.e., "via Culver Blvd ... via Culver Blvd". It would perhaps be useful to have the alternates show the first place where they diverge, i.e., "via Culver Blvd ... via I-90".

[daknife]

You realize this thread has been dead for over three years? That it was referring to vastly different versions of the app and the background servers? And to totally different issues than what you are suggesting?

[Mr_GeorgeB]

I have noticed that when I ask for alternate routes that are the same for a number of turns, it is impossible to tell the difference because they both say the same thing i.e., "via Culver Blvd ... via Culver Blvd". It would perhaps be useful to have the alternates show the first place where they diverge, i.e., "via Culver Blvd ... via I-90".

There is the map view option.

I know it's easy to miss, but, from memory, there's a button on the top right of the alternative routes box that actually shows the different routes on a map when clicked.

Hope this helps.

George