If you’re traveling to a new city, you don’t have to hire a guide if you own an Android smartphone that supports GPS and a special app called Waze. With this app, you can get traffic information, exact travel time, and directions.
You can also get the exact location of local businesses with Waze. This app for Android can be customized as per your requirements. Users can change notification settings, or they can turn off sound generated by Waze.
Waze app review
This program heavily depends on GPS navigation technology. GPS can be activated from the phone settings. Make sure that your device is connected to the internet as maps in Waze are created on the fly.
If GPS feature is not available on your phone, you can switch to Google maps. When you run Waze after successfully installing it from the play store, it will prompt you to verify your phone number. Don’t worry! Waze will not send any SMS to your phone. Its server will send you a message with a verification code.
Enter this number in the verification text field, tap on the next button and you’ll see the main interface of Waze. As soon as this interface is loaded, Waze will detect your exact location. This information will be used in the calculation of the approximate travel distance and time.
The main interface of this app flaunts two menus. The UI of Waze is brilliant. The developers of this app have ditched the traditional Android contextual menus. 2 buttons in Waze function as a navigation system.
If you want to travel to a new place and if you’re not aware of the route, just tap on the left side menu and select navigate button.
If you do so, you’ll see an autocomplete drop-down list and category, friends, home, work buttons. To enter your work location, tap of the work button. The residential address can be set by tapping on the home icon.
To find the route, just enter the address in the auto-complete field. If you don’t want to use Android keyboard app, you can use to voice to set a destination address. To locate the nearest bank, hospital, market, gas, railway or bus station, click on the categories icon.
The categories list is quite impressive as it allows you to locate any useful service in the same area. When you’ve selected a location, Waze app will display a beautiful map along with expected travel time and ETA. Maps can be changed through Waze settings. If you have a slower phone, you can select 2D graphics mode.
If you own a powerful handset, select the 3D mode for a better experience. Blue color highlights the route. Settings panel also include an option to change the car, map color scheme. You can also activate/turn off the speedometer. Along with the map, This app displays a button with proceeding to highlighted route label.
If you tap this button, Waze will show a list containing the exact directions, distance in meters, traveling date. You can change the unit by navigating to Waze settings. Once the target destination has been set, you can get details on alternative routes by tapping on the left menu.
You can select a different path if the route highlighted by the app is affected by the traffic jam, accident or any other mishap. You can get traffic details by clicking the report menu of Waze app.
Download Waze app for Android smartphones.
A Waze user updates this detail. If people in your locality or city are not using this app, traffic information will not be shown. Waze can make other users of traffic police. Thus, if you’ve forgotten you driving license at the home, you can choose a different route.
Waze app comes with a social network like features. You can make people using this app aware of your expected arrival time. You can send messages or chat with other users too.
Waze can connect with Foursquare, Twitter or Facebook. It can even sync events from the social networking site. If your traveling friend is using this software, you can get his location information.
Final thoughts:
I tested this application on a Snapdragon quad-core phone with Android M OS and 1GB RAM. Waze app worked like a charm
Locations of the user and destination address are saved automatically. Thus, your last session and saved data would be loaded every time your run Waze. The data generated by this Android application was accurate.
Also see: Best GPS navigation app
