[Macworld]

Post your comments for Waze adds gas price searches to crowd-sourced traffic app here

[zarmanto]

Cool... but I'm far more interested in that new waypoint feature then I am in the gas prices. (I've been using GasBuddy's app for gas prices for awhile now, anyway.)

Now, if only Waze would start offering routes which avoid toll roads...

[icerabbit]

It would be nice in the future, if getting the local gas price listing was only a single tap away (right in the main menu), not buried in the menus.

Another idea is to have a preference option (so that akin to gas stations being shown on screen as a POI on other nav systems) if it would be an option to show all nearby stations with their price listed. They could color code it: green gas station is lowest price in 10-20miles, orange is average. Red is most expensive station.

[mblaydoe]

Been trying to use Waze, but i am very disappointed in how it performs so far. It tries to send me 30 miles out of my way along a route I KNOW to be more congested. If I can't trust it to pick the "best" route and redirect me according to traffic conditions as advertised, then it is basically useless. Trying to add another 40 minutes to a commute that is already an hour is NOT a "feature".

[VeryOldMacGuy]

mblaydoe, on 20 June 2012 - 02:54 PM, said:

Been trying to use Waze, but i am very disappointed in how it performs so far. It tries to send me 30 miles out of my way along a route I KNOW to be more congested. If I can't trust it to pick the "best" route and redirect me according to traffic conditions as advertised, then it is basically useless. Trying to add another 40 minutes to a commute that is already an hour is NOT a "feature".

I can beat that. Waze takes an easy 160 mile trip I take a lot, and turns it into a 277 mile nightmare. From NJ to an address on Maryland's Eastern Shore, this stupid app takes me through Baltimore, around DC, over the Bay bridge and then back North to my destination. Even my stupid Garmin plots a better route! Thanks but no thanks!

Perhaps a good substitute for Maps as a driving companion, but no match for a dedicated GPS

This post has been edited by VeryOldMacGuy: 20 June 2012 - 05:30 PM

[DocNo]

VeryOldMacGuy, on 20 June 2012 - 05:17 PM, said:

I can beat that. Waze takes an easy 160 mile trip I take a lot, and turns it into a 277 mile nightmare....Thanks but no thanks!

Waze is a commuters dream. Yup, the navigation can be wonky - but who cares? The strength in Waze are the real time updates for traffic, accidents, police, road issues, etc.

And since you already know the best route, and I'm assuming your smart enough to ignore directions you know aren't the best, if you do commute with it within a month it will learn the route and stop suggesting the stupid routes. Thats kind of the point of community, crowed sourced GPS - the more people use it and train it the better it gets.

Having said that - if I'm on a road trip in unfamiliar territory I stick wih my Navigon or TomTom apps - but for commuting or running errands Waze is awesome. And it does learn... eventually.

[zarmanto]

VeryOldMacGuy, on 20 June 2012 - 05:17 PM, said:

Perhaps a good substitute for Maps as a driving companion, but no match for a dedicated GPS

It seems ironic to me that you would make that comparison; I've had a couple of different dedicated GPS units in my cars over the years, and I've experienced some similar problems with those devices, that have been complained about here. On one trip, an in-dash GPS wanted me to go about a hundred miles out of my way, (mirroring your experience) whereas a stand-alone GPS sitting right next to it gave far better routing suggestions. On another occasion, my GPS told me that my destination was in an "un-routeable" location, or some such nonsense -- so it couldn't direct me there, but it still showed me an icon indicating my end-point, and all of the roads between me and my destination, so I just figured out how to get there by eyeballing it as I went. So obviously no GPS is perfect.

That said; I've actually been thinking that the new waypoint feature might be useful in mitigating some of these routing issues: If you know that the directions you're getting from Waze (or any other GPS, for that matter) are not your preferred route, such as taking a consistently congested road or a blocked road or (as in my own case) favoring the toll road too much, then just drop a waypoint along your preferred route, so that Waze is forced to give you proper directions. It's by no means a solution to the real problem, but I figure it's at least worth a shot.

[DocNo]

zarmanto, on 21 June 2012 - 07:27 AM, said:

drop a waypoint along your preferred route, so that Waze is forced to give you proper directions. It's by no means a solution to the real problem, but I figure it's at least worth a shot.

That's a great idea, since Waze does prioritize alerts that are along your planned route.

I'm ambivalent about teaching Waze all my back routes - if it starts sharing them with everyone they will no longer be desirable!

Also you can sign into the Waze web site and update the maps. If its showing a real funny circular route, it may not "know" that the roads intersect. I have corrected a few of those errors in my area, as well as removed some old farm roads that no longer exist but were screwing up navigation, etc. indeed, I live in a fast growing area and being able to update roads on my on and have the updates show up in days instead of quarterly or annual updates with the traditional guys is huge.

All systems and approaches have their pros and cons. For commuting, Waze is hard to beat! Apples iOS 6 app is interesting, but I doubt I will switch. And I doubt Apple is the least bit offended either

[KaranNischol]

icerabbit, on 20 June 2012 - 01:40 PM, said:

It would be nice in the future, if getting the local gas price listing was only a single tap away (right in the main menu), not buried in the menus.

Another idea is to have a preference option (so that akin to gas stations being shown on screen as a POI on other nav systems) if it would be an option to show all nearby stations with their price listed. They could color code it: green gas station is lowest price in 10-20miles, orange is average. Red is most expensive station.

Try Gas Guru with color coded gas prices!

[icerabbit]

zarmanto, on 21 June 2012 - 07:27 AM, said:

VeryOldMacGuy, on 20 June 2012 - 05:17 PM, said:

Perhaps a good substitute for Maps as a driving companion, but no match for a dedicated GPS

On another occasion, my GPS told me that my destination was in an "un-routeable" location, or some such nonsense -- so it couldn't direct me there, but it still showed me an icon indicating my end-point, and all of the roads between me and my destination, so I just figured out how to get there by eyeballing it as I went. So obviously no GPS is perfect.

Something like:
Your destination is an area where turn by turn guidance cannot be provided. Guidance will cease along the route. Please use the directional arrow to guide you.

Aka MB Comand Navigation circa 2008?

I've been furious at the darn thing. It has the street, number and city in the database. It draws it on the map. But it can't guide you. In some instances it is just two streets away, but sometimes it is on the other side of a 200 yr old town with a curved river in-between the halves and lots of 1 way streets ... and when you zoom out to see the destination on the map, it stops drawing the smaller local roads.

The '12 generation is pretty slick with voice command. '13 generation with MBRACE2 should get live online connectivity as well, with OTA updates, live searches, ...

[zarmanto]

icerabbit, on 21 June 2012 - 05:05 PM, said:

Something like:
Your destination is an area where turn by turn guidance cannot be provided. Guidance will cease along the route. Please use the directional arrow to guide you.

Aka MB Comand Navigation circa 2008?

The wording sounds about right, but it was a NavTeq circa 2005 -- and yes; there was a river involved, but the roads crossing it were clearly labeled on the GPS... it just refused to route over those roads. The similarities between your experience and mine does tend to make me wonder if perhaps NavTeq and Comand are just two names for the same mapping source.

(To top it off, the updated map DVD for an in-dash NavTeq still costs $149, even today! I'll take my iPhone with the free Waze app any day of the week, over that.)

This post has been edited by zarmanto: 22 June 2012 - 05:22 AM

[icerabbit]

zarmanto, on 22 June 2012 - 05:20 AM, said:

icerabbit, on 21 June 2012 - 05:05 PM, said:

Something like:
Your destination is an area where turn by turn guidance cannot be provided. Guidance will cease along the route. Please use the directional arrow to guide you.

Aka MB Comand Navigation circa 2008?

The wording sounds about right, but it was a NavTeq circa 2005 -- and yes; there was a river involved, but the roads crossing it were clearly labeled on the GPS... it just refused to route over those roads. The similarities between your experience and mine does tend to make me wonder if perhaps NavTeq and Comand are just two names for the same mapping source.

(To top it off, the updated map DVD for an in-dash NavTeq still costs $149, even today! I'll take my iPhone with the free Waze app any day of the week, over that.)

Comand is more the whole radio / sat / nav / phone / display / buttons / interface / etc system. But MB uses Navteq for their navigation, though I have to say, I'm actually not sure if the current Comand systems still use Navteq. They are vastly improved from the previous generation, and honestly what should have already been in there a few years back. I just keep looking at the new version and wish I had that but it'd require me to get a new car ... which is a whole other issue ($$$$$, price went up $10k, new styling is meh, ...) so I'll just keep puttering around with the old system. I primarily use it for situational overview / awareness anyhow. Not for routing.

I recall something about MB switching, but that may have just been with MBRACE and the help/concierge system TeleAid - MBrace. They wanted me to upgrade. Declined. May not have had anything to do with navigation in itself.

I didn't buy any update discs for the navigation as they don't hold any value for me, especially since they don't help with the routing issue you and I and countless others have suffered with. Which to me is like firmware limitation or bug in the database, when you have roads that are >100 yrs old, but it doesn't know if you can actually drive over them??? We just pull out an iPhone and go from there.

I am bit intrigued though about the send2benz routing etc with the mbrace companion app; and other features of mbrace2. Not something I can do with our vehicles though. And of course you'd pay a monthly or annual mbrace fee.

This post has been edited by icerabbit: 22 June 2012 - 07:26 AM