App a Day: Waze |Social Maps for iOS, Android, Symbian, Windows Mobile and Blackberry

Waze. The new social navigation app which provides you with real-time traffic updates as well as turn-by-turn navigation. The app is really fun to use and comes with a host of features. Since the maps are crowd-sourced, they’re always up to date and accurate in areas where google maps fail. The social aspect of the app comes from its ability to create local traffic groups, which help all drivers in the group by providing traffic updates, accident reports, speed trap data etc.

The app is more of a game than a navigation app as it has a PAC-MANesque interface that has little dots that your car can gobble up while you drive, you also have toffees that appear from time to time  for extra points. If you’re in an area where there are no maps or the maps are wrong, you can re-map them by switching to dozer mode, which turns your car into a bull-dozer so you can pave your own road! This is a great feature and the first time we’ve seen a navigation app providing this level of detail. A full feature list of the app is below.

NAVIGATION FEATURES:

• Voice-guided, turn-by-turn navigation
• Live crowdsourced traffic information
• Real-time monitoring of road conditions and automatic re-routing as conditions on the road change
• Alternative route options
• Notification when approaching police traps and speed cams
• Learns and personalizes your preferred routes
• Free, community-updated map

SOCIAL DRIVING FEATURES:

• Road reports from nearby drivers – speed cams, police traps, accidents hazards and more, with the ability to add a photo to your report
• Ability to create or join local driving groups
• See your Facebook friends on the map
• Check in via Foursquare to earn the ‘Road Warrior’ badge
• Fun avatars to choose from
• Ability to ‘ping’ other wazers
• Twitter integration to share your road reports
• ‘Road goodies’ for extra points, scoreboard, plus other cool geo-gaming elements

SAFETY AND OTHER FEATURES:

• Typing disabled while car is in motion
• Voice-alerts when approaching a hazard
• Automatic shut-down after 10 minutes of no movement to preserve battery life

You can download the app from the following links. Remember to join the iGyaan Waze group called iGTraffic.

Waze – Social GPS navigation, traffic & road reports – Waze Inc.

For all other devices, visit http://m.waze.com from your mobile browser. The Blackberry version is still in Beta and does not have the full feature set.