It will start Android-only, but probably we’ll see it soon on the iPhone as well.
Free, turn-by-turn directions, live traffic, search by voice, street view (!), satellite view… heck, the only missing thing is offline navigation.
[edit]ok, it also has cache for offline navigation (see Gizmodo article).
You know I love Waze, but… this could seriously kill the whole mobile navigation market :shock:
What do you think?
I just saw that on Gizmodo a few minutes ago. I must admit, my heart sank a little when I saw it; however, I think this could be a learning experience for us.
Google has a lot of things Waze doesn’t: satellite and street views in the client, for example. However, we still have a lot of things Google won’t have. Live reports, to-the-minute traffic data, a much more quickly updated map than TeleAtlas can provide, a dev team that responds extraordinarily well to user requests… For this reason, we shouldn’t be too scared, but…
…our user interface. It’s ugly. It looks like it was thrown together at the last minute. I felt a little ashamed looking at the screenshots and video of Google’s app.
Our interface looks cobbled together. I know Google has more resources than we do, but still. Why do we have that blue/grey border around the entirety of the map, wasting valuable screen space and looking messy? Why is our next-turn text rendered so poorly? Why don’t we get the name of the street we’re currently on?
It’s the little things, too. Like “Mi” and “Mph” should really be “mi” and “mph”. It’s not a big deal, but it’s little things like that that make the big picture look so much better or worse. And yes, I’m sure some of it is due to the nature of the multiplatform beast, but still.
They also have worldwide maps, while Waze is still at the beginning. If you look at the European market, that alone could make the difference.
Traffic data will be available in Google too… they already had the basic Map client collecting data during the past months. I don’t know if it’s going to be updated to the minute or to the hour, but it will be probably enough for all casual users.
The “dev team” factor is obviously true, but it’s just a matter of will for Google to get at the same level. They can hire whoever they want/need.
Yes, we have live reports and maps updated in a matter of days… but is it going to be enough to convince the public to switch from Google Maps (a software they all know and trust, and probably already have by default on their phones) to Waze?
We have to keep in mind that Waze’s power lies in the community, which means that for Waze’ system to work properly we need a lot of people using it. That looked pretty easy (well, kinda) until now because Waze was by far the best free navigator for mobile phones. But now we’re facing not-less-than Google… and that’s a little scary for everyone.
Take a look at Garmin and TomTom’s stocks after the news: http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/28/the-game-has-changed/
I don’t think the client graphic is such a huge problem. Sure, it could be better… but that’s not the major battlefield.
The dev team could probably fix it in a month or so, if they focus just on that. But once you’re on pair with other clients’ graphic, the only real way to make a difference is with features. And it’s way harder to find new features for the client than to fix a few gradients and borders.
I had similar feelings this morning when i came across the article, my heart sank a little. I agree with your point about community. We have a great one and hopefully it continues to go. As also mentioned we have things that Google doesnt offer, a great team to respond to our users and the ability to report events as they happen. I just hope Waze doesn’t become obsolete because of this.
Traffic data on Google maps is up to the minute. All phones running Google Maps, except the iPhone, use Latitude and send GPS coordinates back to the Google servers periodically. Also, Google has traffic on many ‘secondary’ roads now too using this same feedback.
We enjoyed reading this post with your analysis of the market now that Google release their turn by turn navigation, and of waze’s strengths and weaknesses. How cool to have smart users
We agree with your assessment that Google Navigator comes as a shock to the current vendors of Turn by Turn navigation - primarily because it’s free and offers a better feature set. We think, and agree with you that they’ve totally missed on the central role of the social / community aspect. They’ve repeatedly failed in this space and prefer the technology approach over the social one.
While there are benefits to automated detection (traffic and the like) human participation on a grand scale is irreplaceable. Creating communities where people feel they belong, report directly from the scene, fix problems, communicate and update each other in real time is not something that can be programed. This social aspect translate directly into anything that’s real time - from updates on things that happened on the road, to map updates. This is where they mist out and it will naturally effect their ability to maintain a constantly updated maps.
Google Navigator is also competing with the current vendor for the "Finding and driving to places you don’t know, and leaving waze and others with tons of opportunities in the commute and everyday driving space where traffic and real time updates really matter. This is were people and communities make a huge difference and this is where us and you have an edge over Google.
I think Waze needs to stay on course. Use the competition to improve Waze. Waze by far has, and will have the social aspect. Right now, thats a huge advantage.
I love wase I prefer it over andnav2 and google maps v1 ! altho I had to uninstall/ reinstall to get it to run right.
the point somebody made about the border etc clean it up a bit I think its plenty fast for me im running Jesus Freak 1.5 on HTC G1
I dont use Latitude and im sure others dont. I think waze in would have unbeatable peer to peer network realtime updates etc let me know if you guys need anything rmccurdy.com
Oh and by the way, comments on UI or usability. You guys have way more influence than you think… bring them up, we’ll fix. For example the ones you just mentioned here are so simple to fix. For example the ones you just mentioned here were fixed and are being released with the new version: blue/grey border around the entirety of the map, “Mi” and “Mph” should really be “mi” and “mph”. :roll:
I am going to join the group that requests the UI for the maps look and feel more like other GPS devices: the screenshots of the new google nav stuff look amazing… If we could get waze to look something like GPS MotionX or something, that would be great! It looks much more polished than Waze.
I do think Waze has something amazing to offer the market though. The crowd is wise and being able to modify the maps in realtime and provide up to the minute notifcation and user interaction while your on the road is simply unheard of.
I will admit that I am guilty of wanting a mobile GPS app that I can use for both my daily commute (traffic/police/accidents/etc) AND on long trips as I would use a traditional GPS. I think that “want” is what makes me like the idea of Waze with a clean/sexy UI like a Garmin/Tom Tom… Seeing wazers in my area is cool! But most people are anonymous and it seems to always list them as “Joined 0 days ago” with 0 stars… its hard for me tell how much other people in my area are contributing. I love killing an afternoon making map updates and browsing the message board.
I especially agree with those that mention the Waze dev team as a big strength for us. I myself have submitted ideas and screenshots of other app and their abilities to alpha@waze.com and later seen that same idea implemented in Waze in a great way! You typically get a personal response from the dev team within 24 hours when you make a request or send anything in to their email address. You can’t get that with TomTom/Garmin and now Google…
Well, they have a feature already that could become to Google what we are to Waze: Latitude. They are marketing it as a soft social networking tool so you can see where your friends are and what they are doing, but all they have to do with that is add some functionality for reporting accidents, cops, and such and they have replicated one of the main features that make Waze different. Will they? I have no clue. But if they want to, they can do it with little effort. And they have the resources to build that user community fast.
I’m not sure I agree that they have “missed out” on most of this, and again I point to Latitude. They definately haven’t focused on crowd sourcing as a direct input into their data, but the functionality they have in place could easily become just that. The one thing that they don’t have is the user-managed maps, but to be honest their maps are about 100x better than ours right now.
I think we have a potential of an edge, not an actual edge. Not yet. I only use Waze for commuting, and I have to go to Google maps still because of the problems I have raised in other posts.
To be honest, I’m not convinved that a completely user-maintained data set has more inherent value. For real-time updates and warnings, user participation is superior. But LA has installed thousands of traffic speed sensors that show real-time speeds all along our major freeways. This is what Google seems to be tapping into, but I’ve been using it since the CalTrans website first posted it in the late 90s. That kind of automation will not be surpassed by anecdotal data. Google also automatically posts data from local law enforcement and CalTrans, so in Google maps you will see where the road construction is based on this data. Couple that with user testimony to say “yes, that is really there,” and the data can be instantly trustworthy.
Perhaps the best of both worlds is where this should go; user participation to validate the automated data, with a merging of the two into a real-world picture of what is going on.
Currently in LA I have never seen another user’s icon drive by me. Sometimes I see one or two way across the city, but for the data to be meaningful we need a heavy saturation. Perhaps if we have on user per mile per direction, the data we provide will be more accurate than what you can get via automation.
Waze most definitely is not simply turn-by-turn navigating. It does a lot more and offers a lot more. Don’t forget, Waze’s navigation is based on our actual drive times. Our average speeds over each and every segment that every user has driven makes Waze’s navigation much more valuable. The fact that I can get stuck in traffic, and 30 seconds later you get routed around me because of it, to the next fastest route…well, I’m sorry, but I’m pretty sure Google’s does nothing like that. Not with the same detail. Google’s routing, even with no other cars on the road and no traffic ever, will still be worse than Waze’s. The only thing going against Waze it the startup time. It takes a while to get the map and its data to the point where it will outweigh the other GPS solutions. But not a long while!
Oh, man, though. I plugged in my TomTom for the first time since the summer last week. It took over two minutes to find satellites. Painful. Advantage: WAZE!
Yeah, I took a long trip yesterday to see an old buddy, and get some Wazing in while I was at it, and brought my Magellan Roadmate with me just in case. That sucker takes forever just to boot up. And after that, like yours it took quite a while to get some GPS data. It lost signal more than the iPhone did, too, surprisingly enough. Actually, the iPhone never really lost signal. There were some places here and there where it got inaccurate for a short period of time and I have some new road cleanup to do. But it never sat there spinning its wheels like the Magellan did a few times. I thought the iPhone’s GPS reception was supposed to be worse than dedicated driving GPS units! :lol:
I’m very new to waze (or is that Waze?)… I’ve been an android user for over a year. Sooner or later I’ll be running Android 2.0/Eclair with Google Maps Navigator. What I would like to see is a strategic partnership between waze and google.
Like latitude integrates (at user’s option) with Maps, I think many of the aspects of waze could be weaved in. Hybrid users would still be able to file reports and their GPS data can still go to waze, but mapping/navigation, etc, would be handled on the google side.
