I am sure you have used Waze and if you have not; stop reading this and go download it right now. Ok, now that you are caught up; as we were. Google Maps use to be the darling of travels. It went unchallenged until Apple maps came along to take market share. Apple Maps didn’t do it with better maps or features. If anything when Apple Maps was a joke when it was released into the wild. However when you are pre-installed in over 1billion phones you get a built in marketshare. That’s how a monolpy works. People in the know and critics alike still held firm to Google Maps, that is until a little company very far from Silicon Valley came out with Waze.
The moment you start using Waze it just feels friendly and modern. Waze’s navigation experience is better than anything out there. The crowdsourcing of travel to outsmart traffic is beyond helpful. In my household we say “In Waze we trust.” Google was not going to go down without a fight so it did what most companies do when they can’t make a better product. They brought Waze and added ads right away. So far the ads are not crazy now but I am sure it is only a matter of time.
If that was not enough Google continues to bring the features that make Waze amazing into Google Maps. I am sure it is only a matter of time before they just shut it down but in the meantime Waze keeps getting better. Waze will tell you exactly how much money you’ll have to spend on tolls on your route
You can imagine how helpful this new feature is going to be for those that drive for a living, or planning for a long trip. Something that happens a lot in the summer months. At the time of this post the feature is only available in the US and Canada however I am sure other markets will join the fun soon. The tolls feature works well and is always updated because Waze is using it’s community. In fact all the data in Waze crowdsourced in real time from someone driving and using the app. That is why other navigation apps can’t match its quality.