App-a-Week: Waze 4.0

By Andy Feng on Monday, October 19th, 2015

Hi everyone, welcome back to App-a-Week. This week’s app, Waze, is one that I’ve written about in the past. In fact, Waze was one of the first iPhone apps I’ve ever written about way back when I started writing app review blogs.

As I’m sure you all know already, Waze is hugely popular navigation app that leverages user generated data to help improve user’s navigation routes and estimated drive times. The Israeli company was acquired by Google in 2013 for a reported $1.1 billion and has more or less operated independently since the transition of ownership, steadily growing its user-base year after year to now over 50 million monthly active users worldwide.

Back in 2013, Waze CEO Noam Bardin wrote in a blog post explaining the reasoning behind the sale to Google as opposed to taking the company public. Bardin says that it was motivated by the fact that an IPO appeared the route that would take the company more into being focused on returns and less on growing as a product for users.

“Choosing the path of an IPO often shifts attention to bankers, lawyers and the happiness of Wall Street, and we decided we’d rather spend our time with you, the Waze community.”

Good for them! It’s apparent that the people behind Waze have their heads in the right place by focusing on their product instead of profit. And today we get to see their hard work being payed off in a big way.

This past weekend, Waze just dropped the biggest update ever in the app’s history. Waze 4.0 has a completely redesigned the UI, streamlining the user experience and presenting a cleaner navigation map. Every aspect of the app seems to be optimized for efficiency as nearly everything you do in Waze now takes fewer taps. Also, did I mention that everything just looks a whole lot better! Check it out for yourself:

New quick access to navigation menu:

Redesigned ETA panel:

New quicker reporting flow:

In addition to the redesigned and more polished UI/UX, Waze says that this new update makes the app more energy efficient! Overall, the new update is a big improvement from the old version and a much needed one for Waze. There’s really not much more to say about it. Waze 4.0 is the Waze we all know and love, just better in almost every way.

Check out the app for yourself and update Waze in the iOS app store. As usual, the Android version is “coming soon”.

Have a great week everyone and tune in next Monday for the final edition of App-a-Week. :)