Crowd-sourced traffic app Waze to come pre-installed on some Android models

Crowd-sourced traffic app Waze, owned by Google, is now officially one of the Google Mobile Services apps. That means it is on the list of Google apps that can be pre-installed on an Android phone by a handset manufacturer. In June 2013, Google purchased Israeli born Waze for $1.15 billion, beating out Facebook for the prize. The latter wanted the entire Waze team to move to Facebook HQ in the U.S. which was not acceptable to Waze. Despite the acquisition by Google, Waze is run separately from Google Maps.

Monday's announcement was made at MWC and Waze boiled down the announcement into two easy to understand statements. Now an official Google Mobile Services app, Waze "provides the ability for OEMs and carriers to pre-install the application on their handsets." And now, "users can enjoy Waze with real time road conditions, traffic and weather on their phone right out of the box."

If you have been dying to use Waze on your Android handset, but the manufacturer of your new Android phone didn't include it out of the box, there are a couple of things you can do to get your way. You can return your phone and select one that does offer Waze pre-installed. You can hold your breathe and turn blue until Waze is added to the list of pre-installed apps by the manufacturer of your phone. Or you could simply go into the Google Play Store, download and install the free app. (Sure, we could have told you that first but what would be the fun in doing that?).

So why do drivers love Waze? Because the traffic info is crowd-sourced, you are getting the latest updates from people who are driving along the same roads that you are. Traffic incidents appear on the map quickly, so you know which roads to avoid. And once a problem has been cleared up, the resolution appears on your map just as quickly. 


via: AndroidCentral