The world of consumer electronics is not for the faint of heart. A company comes up with a brilliant new product that suddenly gets enormously popular but then before you know it, the next big thing arrives and the previous market demand evaporates. Exhibit A - just a few years ago, netbook computers were all the rage right up until the moment Apple launched the iPad in early 2010.
Closer to the garage, Apple also triggered disruption in how we find our way to our driving destinations. Earlier in the last decade a new generation of smaller, cheaper GPS receiver chips made low cost personal navigation devices (PND) a very popular replacement for old school paper maps. When the first iPhone came to market in mid-2007, it ushered in an era of new smartphones with built in GPS. One of the first apps on those iPhones was Google Maps.
At first Google Maps was limited to showing your current location on the map helping users to find their way around in unfamiliar places. It wasn’t until November 2009 when Google launched version of 2.0 of its own Android mobile operating system on the Motorola Droid that the end-times arrived for the makers of PNDs. For the first time, the new version of Maps included full turn-by-turn directions capability just like a PND and it was free of charge.
Since then, a wide array of free and low cost navigation apps have appeared for both the Android and Apple iOS platforms with Waze being one of the more interesting examples. Google creates its own map database from a variety of sources including its fleet of Street View cars that are driving around the world recording and photographing the world’s roads.
Waze on the other hand relies primarily on its community of users to produce maps and provide real-time traffic data that is shared with the entire community.
Warning: Tin-foil hat types that worry about being tracked everywhere they go probably should not use Waze. Actually, if you are that concerned about being followed, you shouldn’t even be carrying a mobile phone but that’s a whole different story. Follow the break to see more about Waze, and to get a download link for the application.
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Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/androidcentral/~3/nrwrJBiE1mQ/story01.htm
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