Waze is the reason I dislike CarPlay now.
I used to HATE CarPlay. I mean, I hated the navigation experience in my Chevy Bolt enough that I was considering switching over to an Android phone. (Google Pixel to be exact). Now, I only dislike CarPlay. When I was just about at my last straw, Apple decided to open up the CarPlay navigation features to third party vendors. This was always my main source of frustration. I just didn’t like Apple Maps. I didn’t trust it to be efficient or fast or even correct all the time. I was so entrenched in my use of Waze that not having it as my in car navigation just sucked the life out driving for me. When Apple decided to allow third party navigation apps, I thought the experience would be fixed.
It sort of was.
I am thankful that I can now use Waze on my in-car dashboard and all of the familiar crowdsourced information is ready and useable in the Bolt but I’m still not 100% satisfied.
So what is missing? A couple of things.
Sending ETAs to friends. I like this feature and unfortunately due to Apples restrictive programming and user interface guidelines for CarPlay, I have to send ETAs via my phone.
The ability to use the in-car buttons. My Bolt has a handy microphone button that I can use to summon Siri when driving. Unfortunately, we can’t make Waze the default Navigation App. So if you click the button on the steering wheel and ask Siri for directions, Apple Maps will spring up on the Dashboard even if you have Waze loaded. That’s pretty annoying. I hope that is fixed soon.
No Smart Home Apps. I have a garage door App and outdoor lighting apps. These would be super useful to have on my Car’s dash when I am in the driveway or pulling up to my house. Especially the garage door one since the Chevy Bolt doesn’t have any Home Link buttons in it. I’d of course LOVE to see Home Assistant’s iOS app pop up in my CarPlay menu.
I’ve been using the new Waze in CarPlay for about 6 months now and it’s very good. It is good enough that I am sticking with iOS for the foreseeable future but I do hope that more of these fixes come in future releases.
So that’s the latest on my Car Play experience. It has been upgraded from Hate to Dislike. Plenty of room for improvement!
Happy Driving!
– Carlo