Hi All,
See my comments on page 4 of this thread regarding street names not being called and confusing roundabout calls (due to lack of street names.)
***Good news***. My drive home tonight (same route) had all the street names read out correctly and that included the roundabouts.

However, I'm not a fan of the 'straight on' calling. First it will say 'take the second exit' and then when you get quite close (50m?) it will say 'go straight on'.

I hope the feedback helps and I hope the people who read these pages are the ones who will persist with the current app and provide feedback rather than uninstalling it and waiting for others to fix it…
Cheers

I would think one of the bug fixes would have been to improve bluetooth microphone compatibility. This is the only app I have that can't hear me through my bluetooth head unit in my car.

Apologies if this has been covered already, or if this is the wrong venue for feedback, but Shark's email below pretty much summed up my feelings.
I've only used Waze for few months, but have grown to really appreciate it, and I go to great pains to participate enthusiastically.
However, this update sucks for me, and kills one of the main functions of Waze for me. Please correct me if I'm wrong, but in order to share a drive now, I can only seem to do so to a contact's phone via SMS. This is dumb. Granted, the old method of typing an email address in was probably dangerous and/or technically illegal in some states. But I just want to share my drive with my wife and my mom, who both have dumb phones. (My mom is elderly, and doesn't even have SMS). Before, I would simply email them the link, they would click on it, and everything was fine. Now, only my wife will get the SMS, which then goes nowhere. Unless she wants to painstakingly transcribe the link by hand (dumb and tiresome) into a browser (she will not do this), then the sharing function has effectively died for me.

As a workaround, I tried setting up another contact of her with ONLY an email address, but Waze does not recognize it.

The IDEAL fix would be if you can share a drive with a contact using EITHER their phone no. (SMS) OR their email, then have that saved as a favorite, or at least preserved in "Recent" so you can send people emails again quickly.

Another point about privacy. As Google, with all due respect, is not exactly a company to be necessarily trusted these days, it frankly creeps me out giving Waze access to all my contacts. I did it, but I didn't like it at all. (I can't wait for the day I accidentally text some drive to my boss or a sleeping business contact overseas.)

This update gives less functionality to the user, as well as less control over sharing.
Definitely a big step back, in my opinion.

The other lesson I learned is to WAIT and READ reviews before you update. Wish I could go back now.

Respectfully,

Duke

TheSharkThatAteSnuffy wrote:I have been using Waze for several years and have recommended it to many people, but this update makes me think that Waze has finally Jumped The Shark.

1. I now find that my actual username is being displayed on the map instead of a nickname! Did nobody at a Waze think that they should warn the users that this major change in privacy was happening? If you are going to start displaying personal information on a public map you should warn us that we need to change our usernames.

2. I can"t send my ETA to my wife without entering a phone number. I can find nothing on you site telling me what you will do with that phone number. The text on the screen implies that it is to help find friends. But I don't want to find friends on Waze. I just want to send an ETA to my wife.

I will stop using Waze now, if I don't see an update that fixes these mistakes in the next two months the software will be removed from my phone.

What a pity the product had to be destroyed like this.

Would like an option to opt-out of providing a cell number. I have an iPad without a calling plan, and this means I can no longer send a "message" to my family about my ETA. Waze does not need a access to a cellphone...provide option for bypassing this (intrusive) requirement.

I'm here to report on loss of TTS on iP5 with latest Apple firmware.

Also experiencing some crashes on startup, as well as general instability / inconsistency with Friends showing up on the main list.

P.S. I sign the petition to undo the phone-number registration for Waze. I assume this was a move dictated by Google to collect user information, but if it can be reversed, do so.

P.P.S. As this is my first time posting, I would like to say that I am glad that Waze has such a dedicated userbase to guide the decisions made by the development team.

Here are some things I have noticed.

• The volume control buttons change the Ringer volume and not the app volume. I had to switch to a different app to change the volume and then go back to Waze
• There are more voice language options (at least more than I remember). It would be nice to hear a sample of the voice when you select it. Perhaps a "Test Voice" button?
• I've tried adding my wife as a contact and it doesn't seem to take. She is not a Wazer, but I like to send her my destination information anyways (anywaze? ). I don't see her pretty face in the "Tap a Photo to Add a Friend" tray even though I've added her before.

AlanOfTheBerg wrote:

BaconDog wrote:

• The volume control buttons change the Ringer volume and not the app volume. I had to switch to a different app to change the volume and then go back to Waze

This has been an issue for quite some time, asked many times and answered just as often. Because Waze doesn't have a constantly open audio channel, the volume buttons when Waze isn't playing a sound, adjust the ringer volume and not the output volume which Waze will use. This is kind of by design of Waze and iOS, but it is annoying.

You can change the output volume with the hardware buttons when a sound is playing or when you activate voice commands and the "listening" prompt is on the screen.

Good to know. And nice tip!

Well put to say 'open audio channel'. I knew (in general) about when the Ringer is adjusted and when the Volume is adjusted but I previously assumed that an app that used the audio channel always had it open.

amswitzer wrote:Found it tricky to send a "Share" to someone who is not a Waze user. Waze used to open the iMessage App (on iOS) and the user simply entered the contact info and sent. Seems that it takes several steps now if your contact is on not on your friends list. Not a good idea when you're driving - actually - it's unsafe! Too many steps.
...
Don't like the fact that you can't add a contact to your friend list without sending them a request to join Waze. Not everyone I send the request to even has a car and would not need Waze.
...
AND - big problem: Waze now sends shares and request from their on SMS server. That's troublesome because the recipient often has no clue who is texting them and may not read it. And you can't ask recipients to save the contact under "Waze" because the number the text is coming from changes all of the time.

I agree with these items. I like to share my ETA with friends -- most of whom are not Waze users. My wife has no interest in Waze but I let her know when I am coming home from work every day. I think it is great to have a list of friends it is easy to send my route to, but find it unfair/frustrating that they have to be Waze users (in order to be in the 'Tap a photo to share...' tray). I want non-Waze users in the tray as well.

Getting the text message from the Waze servers rather than from me is also problematic. I hate to act like an old codger but I liked the old way better. Not sure what the new method brings to the table. It certainly confused my wife.

AlanOfTheBerg wrote:

BaconDog wrote:

• The volume control buttons change the Ringer volume and not the app volume. I had to switch to a different app to change the volume and then go back to Waze

This has been an issue for quite some time, asked many times and answered just as often. Because Waze doesn't have a constantly open audio channel, the volume buttons when Waze isn't playing a sound, adjust the ringer volume and not the output volume which Waze will use. This is kind of by design of Waze and iOS, but it is annoying.

You can change the output volume with the hardware buttons when a sound is playing or when you activate voice commands and the "listening" prompt is on the screen.

I'm going back to my original impression that volume control is currently broken. In the previous version I never had any problem adjusting the volume. Even knowing the 'proper' way of activating the voice commands and then adjusting the volume -- it gives no feedback as to what volume you are adjusting it to. I end up passing my iPhone to the passenger with the instructions to switch to another app, adjust the volume, and then return to Waze. Why should volume control be so complicated?

I understand the Waze/iOS interaction, but it did work flawlessly for me before.

kthrynileen wrote:Was not aware of the need to activate voice commands to adjust volume but I figured it was worth a shot. I got my sound back by merely activating the voice commands. Was this the problem all along? Do you NOT receive audible navigation until you enable voice commands? This was either not the case before (because this is the first time I've looked at this setting) or it defaulted to it previously and now it does not. Just to clarify, I enabled voice commands and now the sound is back - I did not adjust any volume settings at all.

As I understand it, the 'audio channel' for an app needs to be on in order for iOS to adjust the speaker volume. If the audio channel is off the ringer volume is adjusted. One way to guarantee the audio channel is on in Waze is to activate the voice commands.