Google Maps vs Waze?

I

IziWhatNow

Expert Member
Joined
Jul 22, 2010
Messages
2,276
Reaction score
22
What has stour experience been with these two navigation apps with regards to:
1. Knowing about traffic jams first
2. Finding the fastest route in general?

Also mentioned where you live and used the apps mostly.

Thanks
 
I personally use and prefer waze. Its 98% accurate as I am on the road for most of the day,reports from other uses help a lot.
 
Live in midrand and commute to Rosebank. I generally use Google maps.it tells me the best route (I think) and will suggest another route if it there is an accident. So far it works well. I tried waze once and it took me on a wrong route so I switched over.
 
Don't they share traffic data?

I've never liked Waze. The social aspect of it also encourages unsafe driving by being distracted (because you know, you just have to log that incident and gain your points!) and not watching the road. That's my opinion anyway.
 
I prefer Waze. Google Maps has gotten me lost and/or on some road I don't know because it keeps changing the route as it sees fit if you don't cancel in time.

Waze is pretty accurate and reliable but you have to try both and figure out for yourself.
 
Am I that only who says neither? Here WeGo works great, particularly in areas where there's no/limited reception. Displays traffic and everything when you have reception.
 
Waze user at the moment - I'm not sure if it is because of my settings, but it takes to on very strange routes to get me to the destinations.
 
Also use Waze, also find it occasionally takes an obscure route but I attribute that to live traffic situations.

Confirmed this on a trip once where I went the more familiar route and landed up at the back of a monster q of cars...

Love having the Top Gear crew voice overs!
 
I tried Waze a long time ago - used it for a couple of months until it decided that I should try to cross Jan Smuts Avenue in Rosebank in peak hour traffic from a side road (to get to the other side) - was stuck there for 30 minutes trying to cross and never again.

Went back to Google and never got lost, stuck or otherwise inconvenienced. It lets me know where there is traffic issues and gives me the option to change routes (if I want). So I'm happy with Google. No stupidity for trying to shave off time from a trip (and ending up oin a situation where you have to cross a busy road in peak hour across 4 lanes...)
 
Waze for me. But the increasing frequency of ad's are becoming annoying AF. When somebody sends me a location on Telegram or Whatsapp - the default app that opens the locations is Google Maps. Tried to set Waze as default app to open these. Haven't been successful. Only use Google Maps then.
 
cyberbob1979 said:
I tried Waze a long time ago - used it for a couple of months until it decided that I should try to cross Jan Smuts Avenue in Rosebank in peak hour traffic from a side road (to get to the other side) - was stuck there for 30 minutes trying to cross and never again.

Went back to Google and never got lost, stuck or otherwise inconvenienced. It lets me know where there is traffic issues and gives me the option to change routes (if I want). So I'm happy with Google. No stupidity for trying to shave off time from a trip (and ending up oin a situation where you have to cross a busy road in peak hour across 4 lanes...)
Click to expand...

Waze for me.
has
It does that to me also sometimes. It is a bit of a mission to cross Jan Smuts in Rosebank where there is no robot, but has never taken me 30 minutes. At most 5 minutes. Just nudge a little bit forward and people tend to give you a chance. I see there is a option in Waze to avoid difficult intersections, and I have it enabled. Not sure if it actually works though. I have not seen a option to mark a certain point as a difficult intersection.


Capture.PNG
 
Last edited:
I usually use Google Maps to check where I'm going, and then drive there. I don't think I've ever used the navigation feature. I mostly want to estimate the latest possible time that I should arrive at my destination (should I suddenly morph into a little old granny and start driving like my ex-mother-in-law).

I've never used Waze, and I probably don't have enough memory on my phone to download it without having to delete something else.

I'm usually not stressed about the traffic, because where I live there isn't any.
 
I tried out the TomTom Go app the other day, very impressed (and this as a big fan of their dedicated navigation devices). The interface is clean and responsive, the menu structure is exactly like the TomTom satnavs, and the display of the live traffic situation is very in-your-face and clear (red arrows everywhere). Only proviso is that you only get 70km free/month, but that's enough for you to decide if it's worth the upgrade cost of R299 for a year's subs.
 
Foxhound5366 said:
I tried out the TomTom Go app the other day, very impressed (and this as a big fan of their dedicated navigation devices). The interface is clean and responsive, the menu structure is exactly like the TomTom satnavs, and the display of the live traffic situation is very in-your-face and clear (red arrows everywhere). Only proviso is that you only get 70km free/month, but that's enough for you to decide if it's worth the upgrade cost of R299 for a year's subs.
Click to expand...

I checked this app out. First problem I has was app permission: "Allow TomTom to manage phone calls". "Allow TomTom to manage contacts". "Allow TomTom access to and to manage photos and videos on my phone".

Like faaaaaark NO. What does a streetmap app want with the videos and pics on MY phone??
 
I tried using TomTom's website to get a route the other day, and I couldn't for the life of me get it to show me anything useful at all.
 
skeptic_SA said:
I checked this app out. First problem I has was app permission: "Allow TomTom to manage phone calls". "Allow TomTom to manage contacts". "Allow TomTom access to and to manage photos and videos on my phone".

Like faaaaaark NO. What does a streetmap app want with the videos and pics on MY phone??
Click to expand...

As a techy you should know that Android's permissions structure always forces apps to request all sorts of odd permissions just for basic functions. Then again, given your nick maybe it's not that surprising :P As a long-time TomTom user I already knew about their strong privacy policy (they're a Dutch company and the Dutch take data protection incredibly seriously): https://www.tomtom.com/en_gb/privacy/

Something I forgot that will appeal to some of y'all, at the start you can select which map you want to download: all of South Africa, or all of Africa. That means full working services even with no internuts.
 
Foxhound5366 said:
Something I forgot that will appeal to some of y'all, at the start you can select which map you want to download: all of South Africa, or all of Africa. That means full working services even with no internuts.
Click to expand...

That does appeal. Except I've got no space left on my phone. I really do need to clear some stuff out. :(
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top
Sign up to the MyBroadband newsletter
X