Waze is finally adding one of the handiest features from Google Maps and Apple Maps: lane guidance. The feature, now out of beta on the Google-owned navigation app, recommends what lane you should be in when you’re entering or exiting a freeway, for instance. It’s also helpful when navigating complicated intersections or highway mergers.
I don’t own a car, but often rent one for short day trips. That means I usually don’t have an encyclopedic knowledge of the streets I’m driving on, so I personally have found lane guidance on other apps to be a very useful feature to make sure I’m in a good position to follow the intended instruction on the screen. I imagine it will be just as handy in Waze.
Waze also announced a number of other new features today. Trip suggestions, which are rolling out next month, will show personalized information pulled from other trips you’ve taken or places you’ve driven to recently, such as how long the app anticipates it will take for you to get to work.
New traffic notifications, also rolling out next month, will tell you to hit the road when Waze detects traffic build-ups to your “favorite and frequent destinations” and along one-time planned drives so that you can try to beat the rush. And Waze will be adding the ability to access Amazon Music right from Waze’s audio player in the coming months.
