Looking for the best GPS navigation apps? If you’re a rideshare driver (or you’re taking in becoming one), you know that a good digital mapping and navigation system is your crucial tool– besides your car itself!
Currently, in 2017, there are lots of popular navigation apps– and there’s likewise an ever-expanding variety of brand-new offerings on the planet of traffic/map navigation.
All today’s navigation apps provide a range of terrific features, including real-time traffic routing, closure-warnings, and even predicted traffic-flow simulations (which prepare for traffic prior to it takes place). Lots of apps have easy-to-use, user-friendly user interfaces and excellent design, in addition to vibrant voice commands that facilitate ease-of-use and safety.
The best GPS Navigation Apps for Lyft in 2017
So which GPS system is right for you? If you’re a rideshare driver, it’s worth checking out the benefits and drawbacks these days’s navigation apps, and having a look at our recommendations below:
#1. WAZE
Waze is quick becoming the dominant (and most favored) navigation app among rideshare drivers. It’s so well-regarded that it even protected a market-altering alliance with Uber’s most significant rival, Lyft, in early 2017.
Waze is actually owned by Google (it was bought by the company in 2013 for near a billion dollars), and shares many overlapping functions with Google Maps as a result.
Numerous drivers report that Waze has great (if not the best) traffic-routing abilities, permitting real-time re-routing with remarkable speed and efficiency.
In terms of the system’s input functions, numerous users report that Waze’s search capability is likewise extremely quick, dialing up lead to less than four seconds.
Waze also has other fantastic features– consisting of the ability to ‘log’ and ‘keep in mind’ reported street closures, so that you can report incidents/traffic blockages with ease (and have the system actively remember the problem-areas). This is especially beneficial if you’re working as a rideshare driver in a regular location throughout a single night– significance, you will not need to continuously re-input the same incident over and over again– instead, Waze will remember and change its instructions accordingly.
On an aesthetic level– many drivers also take pleasure in Waze’s rounded, cartoon-like visual style, and find it easy to ‘scan’ and digest info in a single glimpse (as compared with the sleek, tech-themed visuals typical in numerous other navigation apps).
Waze Pros
- Waze offers perhaps the most-thorough, real-time information on road clogs and closures.
- Waze has a great social-networking function, which likewise helps upgrade other Waze users about viable paths and traffic (in real-time).
- Waze has a strong focus on safety.
- Waze has a fast-loading interface, and provides fast calculations of ‘quickest’ & ‘fastest’ readily available routes.
Waze Cons
While Waze is an excellent navigation app, it also has some problems. Notable downsides include:
- no lane support (unlike Google Maps).
- Some users report experiencing compatibility problems while using Waze on an iPhone.
- Drivers also grumble that road/lanes are aesthetically too small (which active lanes don’t ‘zoom-in’ effectively at appropriate minutes– something that Google Maps seems to stand out at).
- There is likewise some confusion amongst drivers regarding whether choose ‘shortest’ or ‘fastest’ paths when using Waze, with clashing reports existing about the supremacy of one alternative.
- Some users also grumble that Waze’s emphasis on safety is counter-intuitive– multi-screen choices are frequently criticized as being distracting/unnecessary.
Lyfters state Google Maps is more streamlined than Waze
4 of the drivers said Google Maps (for Android and iOS) was their primary navigation app. None were as enthusiastic about Google’s app as the Wazers were about that app. Nevertheless, the Google Maps users stated the app was simply as useful as Waze, however without the sometimes bothersome clutter of Waze’s user interface.
Apple Maps
Only one driver used Apple Maps as his primary GPS app. He said he uses Apple’s app due to the fact that paths are more clearly noticeable on his iPhone screen than Google Maps or Waze maps.
What’s it all mean?
No single GPS navigation app delivers 100 percent reliable, reasonable instructions 100 percent of the time.
