Waze helps ease road trip planning with new toll calculator

Are you working out the budget for your upcoming road trip? Waze is introducing a new feature for its Canadian and American users. The app now has a new toll calculator that wouldn’t just tell you how many tolls you’re going to drive by along the way. More importantly, it’s going to show you an estimate of how much these will cost you. The navigation app has been able to tell you if you’re going to pass by toll roads, but it’s the first time it can show you how much it’s going to cost you. This feature will help you decide if it’s worth spending your time and money on main highways, or if it’s better to take the scenic route to avoid them. For now, the feature seems to be exclusive to Waze users. Waze’s parent company Google hasn’t said yet if the feature will make its way to Google Maps.

Source: Gizmodo

Waze gets Google Assistant support

Using Waze on phones might be easier now. Google added Assistant support for Android users of the app. The only caveat right now is that it’s limited to English speakers in the US. The update brings some useful features like being able to report issues like traffic and crashes or accidents, help avoid toll roads if you weren’t able to specify this at the start, or ask for an alternative route. You can also speak to Assistant and ask for things like cueing up a podcast or playlist, performing a Google Search, having your notification read to you, among others. While the release is limited for now, we expect that Google will expand this to other markets later.

Source: Lifehacker

Speed trap warnings come to some Google Maps users in the US

Google continues to bring in some of Waze’s features to Google Maps. The latest one is speed trap warnings. It started showing up for some users in November and December. But now there seems to be more sightings of the feature within the app and the reports are made by other drives within the area. What this feature does is give warnings to drivers about areas where they might get a speeding ticket. It’s not a feature that’s particularly popular with law enforcement, as expected.

The warnings show up as orange markers along the driver’s route. If you tap on one of them, you’ll get information such as whether it’s a speed camera as well as when the alert was last updated. There’s also a new speed limit icon being displayed at the bottom left corner of the navigation screen, and an audio notification will also sound off when they’re near speed cameras. According to BGR, it isn’t clear when the feature will come to all Google Maps users, but for now it’s available in specific locations in the US. If you want to use the feature now though, you can still turn to Waze.

Source: Slash Gear

Review: Waze navigation app on Apple CarPlay

By Gadjo Cardenas Sevilla

Apple CarPlay users have been rather limited when it comes to the built-in navigation app. For the longest time, Apple Maps was the default application on CarPlay and it worked in conjunction with Siri for voice commands and for navigating to locations hands-free.

Thanks to iOS 12, however, users who might opt for Google Maps or Waze, can now use these apps for navigation on their Apple CarPlay head units, provided they have the latest version of Apple's software and the apps themselves.

I've tested Waze on Apple CarPlay for the past week on a 2019 Buick Enclave Avenir. This is a luxurious 7-seater SUV decked out with all the finery Buick has been known for. Aside from rear and front moonroofs, heated seats, its own WiFi hotspot and an astounding array of front, rear and 360' parking cameras the Enclave Avenir has Android Auto and Apple CarPlay on tap.

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