Makes sense. I’m surprised they weren’t already by this point.
What’s the benefit of Waze being a separate app at this point besides the brand name? Why not just fold it into the main Maps app?
What’s the benefit of Waze being a separate app at this point besides the brand name? Why not just fold it into the main Maps app?
Even if it’s just a GUI, different apps get you different experiences, and if you succeed it’s a bigger % of phone usage. People who mentally treat location searching and navigation as separate tasks (worthy of separate apps) are at risk of leaving for a competitor. So build two tools specific to each use case. It’s the Unix way.
I don’t know if this is the case, but it’s likely there is some left over legal issues to wrt user data.
I find the Waze experience on Carplay to be far superior to Gmaps. I prefer how it provides access to the key features like reporting/voice prompt, the size/position/color how things are displayed, etc. The level of detail (surrounding streets and landmarks) is more useful on Waze.
My experience has been that Waze seems to have better traffic prediction and avoidance in the areas I use it. Just last night I was following a cow orker from the plant we were working at to a restaurant about 30 mins away. We were right behind each other when my Waze suggested taking the exit and following a different route than my friend. I arrived at the restaurant a good 5 minutes before him, I asked, and he was using gmaps.
Disclaimer: I haven't used Waze in years so this might have changed.
There are differences in my region which make me think that the apps have different mapping and routing engines.
Turn by turn dirrections and road condition information are much more accurate in Waze. There's a larger Waze local community that helps keep maps up to date.
We do use Google Maps, but mostly as a Yellow Pages substitute or for checking business opening time.
2. Waze has features that google maps does not (?) s.a the "ETA histogram"
If I told you one uses Maps and one uses Waze, could you guess which one is likely which? That's the two use cases.
There's a reason minivans don't come with an option for supercharged v12 engines. In theory you can say that people can just "not chose that option" but there's something deeper about how the product is positioned in the market there.
Just like you wouldn't expect an option on a minivan for drag racing mode, you don't expect an option for crazy routing on a mainstream app. Grandma can activated it by accident and cause huge traffic trying to make some impossible left turn. It's not worth it.
Or rather, the group of people in Google who are in charge of this product are reaching the conclusion that it's not the same thing. I don't know the details of their thinking,I can just come up with my own thinking for why it could make sense.
Oh I can tell you pretty much exactly their thinking. If Google folds the functions of their products into another product/team, a number of them are going to have to find a new role. I think you'll be hard put to find a product manager or development team that goes "Eh, we should just kill my product. The competing product is better for most people."
But more to the point, devs and PMs have managers and at some point, some manager is "paying" for both products and must be weighing the pros and cons of consolidation vs separation.
For example I live near a busy road during "rush hour" in the morning and evenings. A few mins up the road from me 2 major roads intersect which causes more hassle during these peak times. Now If you are travelling West to East to wish to turn right at the intersection to continue your journey south its quicker during those times to cut though my neighborhood (and same in the other direction) and cut out the queues leading up to the intersection. However my neighborhood's roads are not designed for that much traffic to flow though them (cars parked in the street narrowing the roads and reducing visablity of pedestrians esp kids playing outside).
The handful of locals that travel though the neighborhood to get home (live one side but enter the other) are fine however if Google Maps routed everyone wishing to make that turn though the neighborhood it would make the neighborhoods roads much less friendly to the pedestrians of the neighborhood esp at times kids are going to school or are back home from school and playing outside.
Keeping the through traffic to the major roads keeps everyone safer, and actually faster overall because the major roads aren't littered with cards parked in the road creating bottlenecks.
Much like how the london underground lies to travellers and routes them around long detours during busy periods to help prevent a crush if they all went the shortest & fastest route possible - https://youtu.be/IrHRQSm6LIs?t=57
> [The] idea was that if each driver is making the optimal self-interested decision as to which route is quickest, a shortcut could be chosen too often for drivers to have the shortest travel times possible.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Braess%27s_paradox
Personally I'd rather not go through neighborhoods for just a tiny micro-optimization because of how much more "work/attention" is required given the increased pedestrian traffic.
The thing is: what Waze does is borderline illegal, and it is regularly updated to still do its thing without getting struck down. Google Maps is "cleaner", and therefore much worse at detecting speed traps. I guess the questionable legality is a good reason for keeping these apps separate.
Once I showed my father-in-law the "police reported ahead" and "hazard reported ahead" features he was sold. He now demands Waze on every road trip and he's not especially tech-savvy. Google doesn't supply this same data.
This seems to have been added in 2019: https://www.macobserver.com/tips/quick-tip/google-maps-repor...
Does CarPlay even offer UX to allow that? It looks like Apple might support it, although the directions aren't very thorough: https://support.apple.com/guide/iphone/report-traffic-incide...
Maps's use case:
> I used Maps just for finding new restaurants and other places.
It doesn't surprise me that Google's doing it, what's the point in having a monopoly if you can't use it to your advantage. It's not good for users though.