Apple CarPlay gets a great free update for Waze users

Waze is one of the most popular navigation apps for drivers and has an update rolling out for those with Apple CarPlay. It brings some changes to the user interface.

The Google-owned tool has approximately 190 million active monthly users and is the choice of many drivers over Google Maps or Apple Maps. With integration into Apple CarPlay, it’s the default app that many head to when they’re on the road.

If that sounds like you, then you’ll know that Waze has been rolling out changes across the last year, with a couple made to the user interface in the most recent update for Apple users. Thanks to the details highlighted by Auto Evolution, we can now look at the difference it will make to your daily drive.

The version of Waze is 5.3.1 at the time of writing, which should show these changes. There are reports of the new interface appearing for Reddit users too.

The biggest change is the addition of a new icon to take you to home or work depending on your driving patterns and the time of day.

This new icon will sit on the side of the screen, above the search icon and the familiar hazard report icon.

The home and work feature is already in place in the normal Waze app, meaning that once you’ve set the locations it only takes a tap to navigate there. Because the CarPlay interface is slightly different, this new icon has been elevated so that it’s there and ready to tap when you get in the car.

The top bar has also changed. This top bar auto-hides, but previously this is where search was located, but that’s now on the main display, while favourites and the audio controls stay in the top bar, but slightly rearranged.

The aim is to make it easier to get to the controls you want quickly and some drivers will probably find it a little confusing to get started – but these are only small changes, so should be easy to adapt to.

If you’re not seeing the update, make sure you are running the latest version of iOS as well as checking for app updates for Waze itself.