Waze 4.0 brings redesign and better battery life

First and foremost, there’s a new design, which, according to the parent company, should provide easier navigation, reporting, and sharing. In short, what it hopes you’ll find is that there’s more of a focus on the driver and on what Waze calls the “social driving experience”. All of these options are just one tap away.

And last, Waze claims to have made significant improvements to battery consumption; the app will now use less of your phone’s charge to get you from place to place.

Perhaps recognizing that users aren’t necessarily passengers, but the drivers themselves, instead of having to tap on each alert, Waze version 4.0 will send you alerts when you approach them automatically.

Unfortunately however, Waze hasn’t had a major update since Google acquired it, and while the app’s functionality has still been great, the years were showing on the app’s paint job. For example, a single panel now shows your ETA, allows you to add stops en-route, shows alternate routes and lets you send your ETA to friends. The map design has been updated as well, it’s now easier to read and alerts are more permanent, enabling users to easily check them at a glance. You can also actively report accidents, police traps and other hazards you see on the road.

Besides the interface changes, Version 4.0 includes a new feature that will send you reminders about when to leave for calendar events, based on traffic. It seems that the update further integrates Waze into Google’s core.

In April, users inquired about why the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus weren’t supported yet, and in reply, the company teased that a redesign was forthcoming.

The crowd-sourced traffic and navigation app Waze is getting a bit of a makeunder on iOS.

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Waze 4.0 is available now for iOS users, but Android users will have to wait on it. No word on when the Android version will be coming out, but Waze promises that it is “on the way”.