Google Combines Maps and Waze Teams Amid Pressure To Cut Costs (wsj.com) 27
Alphabet's Google plans to combine the team working on the mapping service Waze with the group overseeing the company's Maps product, as the search giant faces pressure to streamline operations and cut costs. From a report: Google plans to merge Waze's more than 500 employees with the company's Geo organization, which oversees the Maps, Earth and Street View products, beginning on Friday, according to a Google spokeswoman. Waze CEO Neha Parikh will exit her role following a transition period, the spokeswoman said. Google said it planned to maintain Waze as a stand-alone service and didn't plan to conduct any layoffs as part of the reorganization.
Google expects the restructuring to reduce overlapping mapmaking work across the Waze and Maps products, the company said. "Google remains deeply committed to Waze's unique brand, its beloved app and its thriving community of volunteers and users," the spokeswoman said in a statement. Google CEO Sundar Pichai has looked for areas to improve efficiency following a slowdown in advertising growth this year. In September, Mr. Pichai said he wanted Google to become 20% more productive and indicated the company could merge teams working on overlapping products.
Google expects the restructuring to reduce overlapping mapmaking work across the Waze and Maps products, the company said. "Google remains deeply committed to Waze's unique brand, its beloved app and its thriving community of volunteers and users," the spokeswoman said in a statement. Google CEO Sundar Pichai has looked for areas to improve efficiency following a slowdown in advertising growth this year. In September, Mr. Pichai said he wanted Google to become 20% more productive and indicated the company could merge teams working on overlapping products.
Head of Lettuce (Score:5, Funny)
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Neither one are CURRENTLY what they once were. I used to love my ability to graph new roads (lots of construction in my area) with Waze, then they got the regional gatekee.., er "managers" that moderated that into nothingness, now even that's gone.
And Maps, sweet mercy. It thinks all I want to do is find restaurants around me, all the time, every minute of every day. Sometimes I just want to see where I am.
Color me surprised! (Score:2)
Not.
Keep the Waze team (Score:2)
Cut the Google Maps people loose.
It's going the waze of everything Google... (Score:2)
-> Maze
-> Waps
-> Aaaaaaad...
It's gone.
With one exception, Waze sucks. (Score:2)
The only thing that Waze does better than any other applications is the police reporting. Everything else it's behind Google and Apple on. The UI is worse. Their routing is worse. The stability is way worse. I usually start Waze in the background for the police and hazard alerts, and use a different map application for everything else while I'm driving.
Take the police and hazard reporting, put it in Google Maps, and then get rid of Waze.
Re: With one exception, Waze sucks. (Score:2)
This is the correct answer. Google should have pulled the bandaid years ago and combined both products.
Is userbase so high on Waze they don't want to risk it?
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At the time I started using it, Waze did better at updating an in-progress route to adapt to changing traffic than any of the others, and I'm just not that interested in changing my habit. I bet a lot of others are in the same boat, and they're worried about iOS users moving to apple maps instead of google maps if waze goes away.
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I see a lot of people around using Waze from inertia, they don't even know Maps can do navigation.
Re: With one exception, Waze sucks. (Score:2)
Re:With one exception, Waze sucks. (Score:4, Interesting)
Waze (for driving at least) is great, but you need to go in the settings and turn off a lot of the extraneous information.
If people don't do that, I understand people not liking Waze.
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Google bought Waze to integrate their data and has largely done that. They now pull their own traffic data, in addition to augmenting it with Waze data. They won't lose much in terms of data by cutting Waze and will save plenty of money. I know that'll upset the Waze faithful.
Apple is closer now (Score:1)
The only thing that Waze does better than any other applications is the police reporting. Everything else it's behind Google and Apple on.
The sad thing is at one point I think it was better. I remember for a long time I only drove around with Waze up.
I can't remember what it was exactly but a year or two ago, I just started finding Waze less and less useful and eventually just gave it up.
Apple's police reporting is behind but they are finally catching up, with the ability to use Siri to report police more
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Google Navigation on Android already displays speed traps and accidents--which it gets from Waze.
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Hopefully this will fix the completely STUPID Waze (Score:4, Informative)
I FAR prefer Waze to Maps, but I can't friggin use Waze in my car.
I sent them a message detailing WTF was going on - similar to this one that was a reply on a discussion. I just reworded the one I sent them I don't have a copy of to remove the "Me Too" stuff:
I have the same issue - it started around the Spring time when a Waze update came in. I have enabled debugging and I have sent probably 100 reports after a "catch up" on the map.
I began to suspect my phone and my cable I have a 10 Gbps active cable in use now, no change.
I started having this issue with a Pixel 6 Pro - I actually upgraded to a Pixel 7 Pro to see if it would be different. Now instead of happening 60% of the time it happens 40%. I have found rebooting the phone sometimes helps.
I have literally had Waze running on my in-vehicle head unit using Android Auto with Google Maps opened on the handset itself - Google Maps worked fine while Waze was hung up. If I unplug the phone from the head unit Waze works just fine on the phone itself.
I've been in I.T. for nearly 30 years but I am not a "programmer". From my semi-expert eye, it looks like a "sleep" or power save function that's triggering in Waze - not Sync that shouldn't be. To me it looks like the program just isn't polling the GPS to save power because it thinks the screen is asleep or something similar to that. Shortly before I switched phones I set Waze power management to go full, unregulated power hog and it seemed to improve a little, but nothing has fixed it.
I'm about to send a registered letter to both Alphabet and Ford asking them to fix it.
I bought a Platinum Package Ford and a Flagship phone straight from Google so I wouldn't have issues like this. We can't call Waze some little non-standard app to the side, it's owned by Google now (though I used it before that). This needs to be addressed.
This was their reply:
Hi David,
Thanks for contacting us.
We received your report that Waze no longer works with Ford Sync 3.
As of July 2021, Waze no longer supports SmartDeviceLink.
If you encounter issues with this system, please reach out to your device manufacturer or car dealership for assistance.
Feel free to visit our Help Center for future reference.
Best,
Danea
Waze Support Team
I looked up "Smart Link Device" - the consortium consist of:
Ford
Mazda
Subaru
Suzuki
Toyota
I did a little more research, outside of the core consortium:
Bosch
Isuzu
JVCKenwood
Daihatsu
Panasonic
Yamaha
Basically they straight up told me "We no longer support one of the most common standards in existence just-because."
This reminds me of Internet Explorer not support PNG for so long and Apple - well being Apple.
HOPEFULLY with both teams banging their heads together they'll come up with something more usable than Maps - like Waze is - but not completely stupid with not supporting the most common interface in existence - like Waze.
Re: (Score:1)
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Apply here [centercode.com]
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If they already removed support for this standard, there's no way they're adding it back. And I guarantee the decision was made on an anticompetitive basis. Nobody should have to interact with their beta team to get basic functionality.
Right, we have a good app, what to do with it... (Score:2)
Right, we have a good app with a good service and a steady user base, so we’re going to put it on the back burner until it goes stale. Then we’ll launch a shiny new app to do the same, but worse.
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I am confused about your point: Maps is older, Waze was bought later. Both offer the same navigation features. Which one is shiny new and which one is worse? I argue Maps is better since it does much more than navigation.
First feature to cut - Green Routing (Score:2)
If they're looking to cut costs, they should cut the team behind green routing first. In the past you were given 2-3 decent paths to your destination. Now, Google Maps will give you the strangest routes possible, one of which must always be "green" and takes you on unimagineable detours via god-forsaken, 20mph lands.
Misplaced mal-investment (Score:1)
Sundar Pichai is hot to invest in AI, his own field, which does not make money. Maps is the real killer app for phones. Maps is the reason Google has an Android business, and Pichai doesn't know it. If Pichai messes up the maps business, that will finally be the end of him. He has already messed up the reputation of search, with china-censored-search, and advertisements on the search home page for google cloud and android (ads on the search home page were things that Larry & Sergey would NEVER allow
And the new name... (Score:3)
"Maze."