WAZE
 

The WAZE thread is closed but I want to add my praise to the list. I downloaded it many months ago and didn’t use much with just the phone. I recently bought a 2020 Toyota Corolla with a large display. Now WAZE can play thru this display making it an invaluable asset. I recently had some serious surgery at Emory University in Atlanta which has several locations around Atlanta that I had to visit for appointments. Without the iPhone and WAZE it would have been extremely stressful.

Re: WAZE
 

I love Waze for the most part, it has some quirks which could be problematic if one isn't familiar with the city, but they are small and not major, one example is here in Vancouver we have streets that go from one side of the city to the other, but some you cannot drive continuous from one end to another due to traffic calming measures, development over the years, and at times Waze will direct down a street to avoid traffic that has traffic calming measures and thus not an option for a car, so just learned to ignore it if its trying to send me down smaller streets.

Coming back from the airport to home some reason it always wants a random right turn down a random side street that goes nowhere but a brick wall.

At my dads house it will try to get me to turn left into the post office thinking the street goes through but it doesn't.

A few quirks they need to work on, but otherwise its a good app, and most accurate for my area when it comes to traffic.

Re: WAZE
 

The voice input was a great surprise to me. I was in Florida a few weeks ago and stay at military bases when possible. I verbally asked for Moody AFB in Valdosta and Macdill AFB in Tampa and WAZE took me to front gate without any other input. I was impressed.

Re: WAZE
 

I used to be a huge fan of Waze but I've settled on Google Maps these days for the most part. My new Samsung S10 will allow me to run two apps in 'split screen' mode, and I sometimes run both for giggles. My biggest complaint about Waze from the past was that it would sometimes take you through some pretty obscure 'back streets' without much benefit. Google Maps seems to have pretty much most of the Waze features baked in by now.

May or may not be related, but your observations - are they non-US? (I know you live in Vancouver, but you refer to your dad - is he US?). In the Western US, Google Maps (and Waze) are shockingly and consistently accurate and always get me right to the 'front door' of the business, as it were. But in the UK, my results were extremely disappointing. In the UK, even when I give it a specific street address or business name, it would get me 'close' but sometimes on the other side of a fence or at the end of a cul-de-sac with the target location a short distance beyond. Last experience was a Tesco petrol station just off the main road from Poynton to Manchester airport. This whole area was a newly developed industrial / commercial area (but 'finished'), and had a decent layout. Google maps took me 'around the back' of the development and declared victory with me being able to read the 'Tesco' sign but not able to get to it thanks to a dead-end, fence, and small strip of land. This was as mainstream an area as you could imagine! Being late for my flight, I was not thrilled but managed to just roam around the roads until finally I found one that connected me to the station. Are there regulatory restrictions on GPS 'resolution' in UK, I wonder? (I remember when GPS first came out for consumers, devices were limited as to how accurate they could be due to security concerns).

Re: WAZE
 

Only my dads house for issues in the US that I have experienced, everywhere else in WA/Oregon/California its worked flawlessly. Its not as flawless in Canada, it works well enough but has some quirks that could possibly cause an issue if not familiar with the area.

It's not trying to route through the US anymore so that is a plus, at one point if you put in Victoria, BC as destination it would well send you to the beach and expect you to continue through the water...ha ha but maybe they fixed that and route people via the ferry now, that was all when it was fairly new still, its gotten much better over the last couple of years.

Re: WAZE
 

I like the Waze overall but it does have some issues if you live in a major city like I do:
1. Waze fails to account for the fact that traffic will build at the beginning of rush hour and dissipate rapidly towards the end of rush hour. The resulting route selection is often wacky and the ETA can be wildly inaccurate. This renders the app far less useful right when you need it most.
2. Waze often suggests completely impractical routes (lots of left turns into traffic, dense suburban cut-throughs, 18 turns in a row) that may theoretically save a couple of minutes but are far more stressful than simply staying on major roads. It seems to prioritize its theoretical ETA (which is often wrong, see my previous point) above all other factors, which is a dumb approach. I see this is also mentioned above, glad I'm not the only one bothered by this.
3. The carpool feature is completely ridiculous and annoyingly pushed. Does anyone actually use this?
4. The interface is a little cutesy-wootsy for my taste.
5. The vast majority of warnings are useless noise.

Re: WAZE
 

2 - yes, this is exactly my complaint - I was presented with several 'detours' that had me crossing a major thoroughfare from a side road with no stop-sign for the cross-traffic - which means you wait for ages to make the crossing, if you are even moderately cautious. And yes, left turns into the same situation, which are just as bad.
5 - If I hear 'vehicle stopped on side of the road' one more time I will shoot Waze! I think the problem is, Waze runs a 'points' scheme where members get rewarded for reporting issues, and 'vehicle stopped on side of the road' is one of those easy scores.

Re: WAZE
 

I can't remember where it is in the app because I did it years ago, but you can pick and chose which alerts you get. "Vehicle stopped on side of the road" is close to pointless in my view, if it is a genuine hazard you'll see it and react appropriately. Stuff in the road I care about and, purely for informational purposes you understand, cops. Also, I hate satnav voices so I always have it in silent mode, the alerts just pop up on the screen 1/2 a mile out.