Why is Google Maps separate from Waze? Why not just merge them?
Exactly this. A lot of smartphone apps want access to your location information, but very few of them — map/traffic apps, weather apps, etc. — actually need that information in order to function properly. Most of the rest want that information to serve up “personalized” information, which often is just targeted ads; it also allows them to see and commercialize data about where you are and where you go.
So, yeah, it’s a minor inconvenience to have to grant location access to your map app, and if you don’t understand what “location access” is in the first place, it can lead to frustration.
When Google Maps alerts us of an event ahead, it ask if it’s still there when we pass, when the wife’s phone is connected to the vehicle.
I do a lot of driving around the country on work trips and always use both Waze and Google Maps at the same time (typically google maps on CarPlay display, Waze on phone on dash mount). If they differ in arrival time I will look at both, and depending on which I trust more in that instance, switch to that one being displayed on CarPlay. Waze will pop up alerts on the CarPlay display even if it’s running in the background as well. Frequently only one or the other knows about police, accidents, etc. Their routing is often different, and more than once Google Maps knew about a closed road that Waze didn’t.
I did use maps a little today, but it wasn’t a long trip. I did get turn by turn directions, but the speed limit display was higher than the actual posted limit.
I’ll be taking a slightly longer trip tomorrow, so I’ll do some more investigation.
Now that’s interesting. I had more or less decided they were keeping the two UIs alive for consumer inertia reasons while using the same data and services under the hood. it seems that thinking is wrong.
I have both on my Android device, but only use Maps connected to the car via Android Auto. In a quirk I did not expect it seems like Android Auto only wants to allow one app in each of the broad categories like nav or music or messaging or … Obviously only one can be be displayed on the car at a time, but I meant only one can be selected from. There’s a separate config screen on the phone to identify which app goes in which slot. So it’s quite a process to switch from e.g. Maps displayed in the car to Waze displayed in the car.
Color me very surprised when I discovered all this.
Not really, they serve two differnt types of users. The WAZE app is more biased towards crowd sourced real time road conditions. There is a lot of user input capibility in the app related to road conditions and it seems to be more accurate as to real time issues on the road. The Google Maps app is much more robust, as it gives you more detailed information on businesses along the route. If you just want to get to where you are heading then WAZE is the app for you. If you want to ask more detailed questions about where you are going then Maps is the app you will use. If you don’t like adding information into WAZE about accidents and tires in the road, then Maps is more suited for you. I do think that Maps picks and chooses information from WAZE to share in Maps.
But google has other location applications as well. When I did a snit at Uber/Lyft I picked up a google engineer and discussed with him the problems I was having. He explained to me that google also provided custom apps to various driving services, not just Uber and Lyft but for delivery and trucking companies. He also told me that google had much more information available that detailed high rise information and underground infrastructure that users of WAZE and Maps would never see, unless google decided to make it available. In WAZE and Maps we are just seeing the free information (with ads).
Oh, and my one question to the google engineer was, why are you taking me down a dirt freaking road, doesn’t google know its a dirt road? And he said yes they do, but that information is not deemed to be neccesary to tell the customer at the time. Damn you google I said and he just laughed and then explained more about googles hidden capibilities.
Yeah, my GPS in my 4Runner sucks, so I had an extra tablet, link it to my phone and use Google Maps. Works great for me.
I just open Chrome>Google maps and put in my destination. Bingo.
You win the typo of the day award! 
Seriously, thanks for the rest of the insider info. I will give Waze a fresh try; its target use cases seem closer to mine.
OTOH …
Even way back when I always found Waze’s cartoonish UI to be offputting. The users aren’t 5yos used to Fisher Price toys. Don’t insult me with a Fisher Price UI.
“Google Maps” is a distinct app. It’s not the same thing as navigating a browser to https://www.google.com/maps. Lotta similarity, but not the same. You might try both ways and see which you prefer.
I’ve never used Waze, as Google Maps, linked to my car via Android Auto, has always worked great for me. On a recent road trip, Maps warned me of an accident/road closure an hour in advance, and also directed me to a five-minute detour around a construction site that was an estimated 20-30 minute wait time.
Yup. I hate it when Google maps asks me to poke at my phone while I’m driving. If Waze does that a lot more, it is not the app for me.
I don’t know if it’s still true, but Maps used to lean more towards simple routes, and Waze towards micro-optimization, like going down residential roads to shave a minute off drive time. But lately, I’ve been ignoring a lot of those micro-optimizations in Maps. (no, i didn’t want to turn left onto the big road to drive 50 feet yards. I’d prefer to turn at the light, where i will get a left turn signal.) So maybe that’s no longer a differentiator.
On reasonably modern cars you ought not need to poke at your phone. Through either Apple Carplay or Android Auto your phone ought to be able to send the UI to the big screen in the car. Where all that actually optional poking is much easier.
Huh, thanks. Google maps has been very helpful for me though. We are moving to a new town. I’ve never even been here before, but it’s the Colorado front range, so I’m not completely lost. I live in SE Denver for about 15 years.
My car (Chevy Equinox EV) has built in Google suite, and the Google Maps navigation is slightly different than when I use Android Auto and Maps on our other car. The built in version is more Waze-like than from my phone.
Question about how phones work for this application. If you are in an area with no internet or cellphone service, what does it do? Just pause until conditions change? Is there any notification to the viewer that this is happening?
If your phone is set up to download the map ahead of time*, it’ll be fine. You don’t need an internet connection for the GPS to work.
*I’m not sure if you can make it do that automatically, but you can download an area (ie a city) and it will be able to work with that without needing access to the internet.
That’s an interesting point. My car is too old to have either of those, and, in fact, lacks a “big screen”. (It has a screen that the infotainment center uses, but it’s not all that large, i suspect it has fewer pixels than my phone (so i wouldn’t want to use it for navigation) and i use the physical buttons in preference to poking the screen to the extent i can. (Which means that i almost never change radio stations while I’m driving. I can adjust the hvac and the volume with fixed, physical buttons and knobs.)
I think that even with a big screen, i don’t want to be looking at it while i drive, though. And I’ve been a front seat passenger in lots of cars with large screens, including the enormous Tesla screen, so i know what I’m comparing to.)
Just to elaborate on this, the phone contains a standalone GPS unit, just like the dashtop GPS units that you can still buy. It doesn’t need cell service to receive and process the GPS satellite signals. But it needs cell service to continuously update the map so you can see where you are. So downloading the map ahead of time solves that. (The standalone units have the map data for the whole country already on board. I remember having to buy a map package if I wanted to use it in Europe.)