Basically, I want a mapping app which looks at a long trip and suggests alternate routes based on traffic, accident reports, etc. and is smart enough to weight routes based on historical trends. Waze has much of that but could use the kind of tuning which Google should be really good at and the much larger dataset it'd get if e.g. all Google Maps users were contributing data points.
The only other complaint I have with Waze is the clumsy UI for searching & adding stops (not to mention the 1 waypoint limit), the former being an area where Google should be able to deliver huge quality improvements almost effortlessly.
For me the really sad thing about this is thinking about all that community collected data. If a company manages to attract a community of people volunteering and contributing data, it's wrong for that to be taken away. Hopefully it won't be taken away completely in this case, but if the app is phased out, then you'll just have to hope your data shows up within google maps in some form. You're at their mercy. The data was collected by the community but it never belonged to the community.
There's a broad principle here which I think we need to be more collectively savvy about. Community "Crowd sourcing" should always go hand-in hand with community ownership of the data. This means open licensing and offering of bulk downloads. There needs to be increased awareness, and strong campaigns against the behaviour of companies who recruit a volunteer community, but don't give the data back (and I mean give it back properly, in a raw unencumbered open-licensed form)
Waze is not the worst example of this because I think a lot of waze contribution is in the form of very passive data collection. The value comes from algorithms rather than dedicated passionate contribution from volunteers. But even so. The community puts data in. The community loses the data in the end.
Google maps in these countries has easily slipped inside the daily behavior of people in these countries in a way that is heartening to see - Drivers use it, students use it, hotels use it to show the way about town, bus drivers use it. It is amazing how accurate it is in these countries. I am thankful it exists.
I thought it was quite interesting how quickly Apple has come up to speed. Or maybe how slowly Google has been once they started to dominate.
I find that Google Maps is simple, clean, and quite accurate in predicting time to destination. Plus, now it displays traffic jams and incidents signaled by Waze users.
The really annoying things is that even after Microsoft makes it painfully easy for Android apps to be brought into Windows 10, Google probably still won't do it.
I depend on Waze every day and its issues are nothing compared to value it provides. Unfortunately it's not integrated into my Model S so sometimes I drive with both the "native" Model S GPS (= Google Maps) and Waze so I can benefit from the greater maps on the 17" screen as well as the better directions from Waze. It's mighty confusing though.
Trapster was originally positioned @ speed trap avoidance but as they grew to tens-of-millions of users their feature set more closely mirrored Waze (or vice versa?).
Trapster was eventually scooped up and killed by Nokia (1), is there any true competitor to Waze @ this point?
(1) http://www.engadget.com/2014/12/01/trapster-shutting-down/
