An informal review of Waze vs. Google Maps

Given my daily work commute, I am interested in using my iPhone’s built-in GPS capabilities to alert me to traffic jams, accidents, or other problems I might encounter driving to or from work. I’ve been trying out two iPhone apps in particular for this purpose: Google Maps and Waze.

Both apps are freely available, which is a requirement for me. Both make effective use of the iPhone interface and GPS. Both provide real-time traffic information and have good coverage in the areas of my commute. There are quite a few differences, however.

Waze is a relatively new service that is built upon the idea that the more people who participate and contribute information to the service, the better the information it distributes to everyone. In other words, it’s a crowdsourcing app in its purest form. Google claims its map application is also crowdsourced, but it is a different shade of crowdsourcing altogether, one that is far more passive than Waze’s approach. I like Waze’s approach better than Google’s, and I think it is more effective and informative to users.

Another difference is the way each app operates. My iPhone is the 16 Gb 3G model running the latest OS version. My settings are set to auto-dim after a certain period of time. This means that with Google Maps, in order to keep it visible I have to keep touching the screen every once in a while or else the screen will go blank. Not so with Waze, which nicely keeps the screen active throughout operation. Another plus for Waze.

Waze uses a completely different map source than Google Maps, at least for here in the U.S. It uses the United States Census Bureau TIGER map which, by its own admission, has many faults which Waze hopes will be gradually corrected using its crowdsourcing approach. In addition to its map source, I find Waze’s visual map representation to be very mediocre. For example, although you have choices between a 2d and 3d view, as well as day and night views, there is no option for satellite view or some hybrid view, like Google Maps offers. This is a huge negative, although in daily driving it isn’t a big deal. One small gripe I have about Waze’s implementation, though: Somehow it can sense when it’s nighttime and it will automatically switch to nighttime view. However, at the moment it doesn’t seem to be capable of auto-switching to daytime view when it’s light out. (Note: this bug has justed been fixed in the newest app version.)

I really like the popup notifications of traffic problems that Waze has in its interface. In contrast, Google Maps currently offers only a visual alert by means of the coloring shown on a particular road (e.g. if a road section is shown in red, that means there are traffic problems). In addition, Waze offers a might greater variety of feedback or detail about traffic.

At the moment, Google Maps’ data is far more accurate and reliable than Waze’s. The good thing about Waze, though, is that it will “learn” over time, and it also provides users with the ability to easily correct problems within the interface.

One outstanding feature that Waze has and Google Maps for the iPhone doesn’t have, is free — yes, free — turn-by-turn voice directions. The directions don’t include street names yet but I’ve found this to be a minor annoyance so far.

Things will get much more interesting when the new Google Maps Navigation functionality, currently available only on Android phones, is ported to the iPhone. But for now, Waze is the clear winner in this comparison, at least for me.