That's where it shines. Other than that It seems to eat a lot of battery and make my phone run hot so I stick with Google elsewhere.

Why do they do it this way? Couldn't tell ya.

Waze traffic avoidance is also far superior.

If you don't know where you are going or are traveling long distances, Google Maps is better. Waze simply can't handle long distance routes very well and Google Maps is far less likely to send you down some weird road to avoid a hot-spot. You definitely want to try and avoid weird roads or odd routes in strange areas.

It also warns you of speed and speed cameras on the road, which google maps doesn't do.

The way Waze works is that it will do everything and anything it can to avoid a busy intersection or a congested street, without regard to whether or not going out of your way will take more time than just slogging through the intersection or the street. Waze will prefer a route that takes an hour but only takes streets that are empty over a route that takes half an hour but involves multiple busy intersections. Google optimizes its routes purely by time: whatever route will get you there the fastest is what it'll go with.

Waze also has a notorious tendency to encourage people to make left turns from the right lane and vice versa. It's illegal and dangerous. These instructions often take the format of "turn right on [six-lane arterial] and then immediately take the next left", even though it's physically impossible to get across the street in time.

Waze also cannot recognize the entrance to my townhouse complex as an entrance. It will always suggest cutting through a neighboring gated community to get to where I live. As a frequent Lyft rider, this means that I cannot ride with any driver who uses Waze if I'm going to or from my home.

I often have to call drivers who pick me up from my house and say "please confirm that you are not using Waze", and if they say they're using Waze, I will immediately cancel. If they're close enough though, I'll just monitor their route, and I'll immediately cancel if they take a route that only Waze will suggest (for example: the entrance to my complex and the neighboring gated community are on separate but perpendicular arterials; if they're driving on the arterial my entrance is on, but they drive past my entrance and then make a left turn on the other arterial, I'll know they're a Waze user, and I will cancel).

Sometimes, when I'm being picked up from work, I'll see a driver starting up Waze, and I'll say "please don't use Waze; it can't get to where I'm going". Sometimes, the driver will let me manually navigate them or on rare occasion even start up Google Maps, but I've also experienced a bunch of drivers who will throw angry temper tantrums because I asked them politely to not use Waze. One driver started screaming her head off at me while punching the steering wheel. I've had to get out of the car and call their trust & safety hotline a couple of times. I'm convinced that these drivers know that Waze will suggest routes that take more time than Google does, and that they are deliberately using Waze to run up the meter and make more money; as such, they get pissed off when a rider won't play along.