Waze forum

Hi guys,

A new iOS beta version is here for you to check out!
Please share here your feedback on this version, or send it to beta@waze.com

Full link: itms-services://?action=download-manifest&url=http://waze.s3.amazonaws.com/client/ver ... 9.20.plist

Changes:
- Stability fixes
- Fixed no prompts when running in background

PLEASE NOTE: right now our beta group is full. Those of you who are already in the group - a notification for the new beta is waiting in your mail. If you didn't receive it, please contact us (beta@waze.com)

Thanks!

Background audio still not working
Still no prompts when running in the background, either at the springboard or in another app. If I tap the home button while a prompt is playing, it will often finish playing while in the background, but no prompts after that will play until Waze is brought to the foreground again.

ASR
Thank you for disabling ASR while in the main menu and report, but there are still problems. The below two examples make me ask, "can't you just disable the proximity sensor completely when a menu or other interface comes up on the screen and enable when reporting is complete/canceled?"

1. If I go into a hazard or any other kind of report, ASR is enabled again, so tapping on the screen to report a moderate traffic jam, if my hand is in just the wrong place, will still trigger ASR if the proximity sensor is being used.

2. Even though ASR proximity sensor is being ignore when in a menu, the screen still blanks out when I go to tap on a button, so the tap isn't registered on the button. I have to move my hand and try again to tap.

Destination sharing
ETA sent in the email isn't the same as on-screen. For me, it was only off by 1 or 2 minutes, but that still doesn't make sense why it should be different

Map issue reports
Previous version fixed landscape mode bug not submitting text entered. Thank you.

The Map Issue report panel is still the only one which doesn't have a "Later" button like Traffic, Hazard, Accident, etc. Map Issue interface which allows completion of the report later, such as when stopped, will likely allow us to gather more useful text from drivers because they can complete the report issue when safely stopped.

Report menu disappearing on rotation
This bug was reported 5 beta version or more ago, and has existed since the release of v3.

It is claimed to be an iOS 5 bug, but the Main menu does NOT have the same issue, so it appears to be a Waze-specific bug.

In Landscape mode, tap the Report menu, swipe to the 2nd button set, rotate to portrait. Menu icons disappear.

Video:

Alternate routes from "Are you going to ...?" prompt
It appears this bug is fixed, as I was able to get alternate routes from the "Are you going work work?" prompt. (It still takes WAY too long to get a response from the routing servers, though.)

ASR is working surprisingly well for reports. I really do find myself enjoying being able to say, "report heavy traffic" or "report hazard weather snow" and be done. Sooo much more efficient and safer than tapping. This is going to be an excellent feature to roll out to everyone.

It will be essential to be able to add "other direction" or "other lane." Also it would be very nice, since this is part of the GUI, to be able to add a voice annotation or text. Hopefully you are working on how this will work. The last item is the Group selection, but that's of least importance, IMO.

Navlist missing street names
While the TTS and on-screen shows the correct street name being turned on to, if there is an intermediary unnamed segment, the navigation list will not show the name. This happens regularly when there are dedicated right-turn lanes for example, for which the standard is to leave them unnamed. However, since that is the segment being "kept right" or "turned right" to, that is why the navlist is missing the name. (This empty segment name in the navlist has also been noted by gettingthere in relation to ramps.)

The navlist should be displaying the name of the next named segment.

Example:
In the first screenshot is one such dedicated right-turns before the actual intersection. The name of this dedicated right-turn segment is empty. The street being turned onto is named "SW Millikan Way." The second screenshot shows the navlist captured at near the same time, which shows I am turning right onto an unnamed street. While technically correct, it isn't what we want to show in the navlist. The name "SW Millikan Way" should be showing.

For Shoulder hazards, please change "Car" to "Vehicle" so that people will stop complaining if it's a truck or a bus or something else. Vehicle is more generic.

Also, I do think it would be good to add "Vehicle" to the Road hazard subcategory.

Arrival announcement
Perhaps I am wrong, but didn't Waze use to announce the address of your destination when you've arrived? "Arriving at 345 Main street" or something like that? Well, it doesn't now. I think it should announce the address number and street name, if it has one available either as the direct address search, or via the POI search results which almost always include an address.

What would be even better is if it would announce "Arriving at 345 Main street, on your right" or "on your left" depending on where the location is exactly. Waze address numbers are defined for each side of the street, and POIs should also be really easy to tell if they are to the left or right of the current location.

Audio ducking/pausing
I was really pleasantly surprised to discover that Waze is pausing my Music (iPod) playback of an audiobook in order to give me the navigation instructions. This is very nice.

But, there is a problem with the implementation. Here's the process:

1. The audio fades out
2. The audio pauses
3. Waze announcement plays
4. Audio unpauses
5. Audio fades in

This sounds reasonable, and in general, is mostly OK. However, during the fade-out and fade-in, when listening to an audiobook especially, words are lost and it is a bit difficult to follow the sentence with 2-3 words being inaudible.

I am not sure what the best answer to this is. I think a hard-stop would be OK, but if it's possible, I would make the fade-out a lot shorter. Even as short as .1 seconds.

sketch wrote:Alan, what were your settings? Were you listening through USB or through the headphone jack?

Waze Prefer BT off
Waze play audio through speaker always on
Audio is playing from the Music app through BT to the car stereo

sketch wrote:I see. I have play through speaker off. Does that now work reliably?

More or less. I haven't done exhaustive testing. I have noted that it will sometimes stop sending audio to the speaker, but then haven't gone to see if it's sending it over BT. (I don't always have BT streaming running.)

With the current setup, the playback/pause also seems to get confused, and the audio playback gets paused "permanently." I can restart it in the Music app or from the car stereo, but again, haven't tested that enough to come up with a repeatable scenario.

Unfortunately, the interaction with audio is still quite buggy. Today, as I approached an intersection which Waze prompts with (too many) keep then and then turn rights and then a turn right, the audio stopped and never started again. I'm thinking this is because it lost track of what state the playback was in and didn't restart it.

This also then continued more issues as I went to the Music app and started the playback. And when I switched back to Waze, the audio stopped again. It would start again when I switched out of Waze.

So, then while back in Waze with no audiobook paying, I hit the play button on the car stereo (connected over BT), and it worked. But! Now Waze refused to play any turn prompts. After not hearing several, I exited Waze and started it back up. And it played turn prompts again.

So, still some refining of this code is in order.


--
If it looks strange, or I used bad grammar or misspelled anything, it's my phone's fault.

Dave2084 wrote:I've experienced two occurrences of the audio stopping; once on Thursday evening and once at 6am this morning. I just uploaded the debug mode logs, hopefully they will be useful.

Did you have any other audio running from the phone at the same time, like a streaming app or the music app? If so, what interface? (headphone jack, USB/dock, or BT) I also experience this issue from time-to-time and a restart of Waze is the only solution. As I've mentioned above in a couple posts, the audio has issues. I think it would be worth it to lay out the options from scratch and come up with a stable solution.