Google's Waze mapping service launches carpooling trial in Israel
As Apple looks to expand its Maps effort with public transit information, Google its taking its Waze service in a different direction, debuting a new ride sharing feature that is being tested in Israel.
The new carpooling function in Waze, dubbed RideWith, uses a driver's planned route to work, and suggests other users they might be able to pick up along the way. Details on the pilot program were revealed this week by Reuters.
Waze confirmed that the "small, private beta test" is underway in the "greater Tel Aviv area."
Drivers are limited to two trips per day, and cannot earn a salary from the carpooling service. And passengers will "order" a ride to or from work, and their payment will help cover the cost of gas and wear and tear on the car.
Google acquired Waze for $1 billion in 2013, and some of its functions, including crowd-sourced traffic data, have been integrated with its own Google Maps service. However, Waze also remains its own separate application, available for free on both iOS and Android.
Apple, meanwhile, ditched Google for its own proprietary mapping data starting with iOS 6. This year, with the launch of iOS 9, the company will expand its offering by integrating transit directions for buses, trains, subways and more.
Google Maps, of course, has had public transit directions for years. Apple Maps has a great deal of catching up to do in that respect, as transit directions at the launch of iOS 9 will only be available in a limited number of cities.
The new carpooling function in Waze, dubbed RideWith, uses a driver's planned route to work, and suggests other users they might be able to pick up along the way. Details on the pilot program were revealed this week by Reuters.
Waze confirmed that the "small, private beta test" is underway in the "greater Tel Aviv area."
Drivers are limited to two trips per day, and cannot earn a salary from the carpooling service. And passengers will "order" a ride to or from work, and their payment will help cover the cost of gas and wear and tear on the car.
Google acquired Waze for $1 billion in 2013, and some of its functions, including crowd-sourced traffic data, have been integrated with its own Google Maps service. However, Waze also remains its own separate application, available for free on both iOS and Android.
Apple, meanwhile, ditched Google for its own proprietary mapping data starting with iOS 6. This year, with the launch of iOS 9, the company will expand its offering by integrating transit directions for buses, trains, subways and more.
Google Maps, of course, has had public transit directions for years. Apple Maps has a great deal of catching up to do in that respect, as transit directions at the launch of iOS 9 will only be available in a limited number of cities.
Comments
Where's Taylor Swift this time?
" src="http://forums-files.appleinsider.com/images/smilies//lol.gif" />
Is there a way to see the "trust worthiness" of a candidate sharer? Security is an issue when getting into a car with strangers... including in Israel.
Considering the people I see driving, I am not sure I would just drive with someone on waze. I know some people will not drive with me since I tend to drive fast as long as others stay out of my way.
Also I have driving style of path of least red lights and it tends to be a quicker way to get places. But requires using back roads which some people tend to avoid, they seem to like highways and main roads.
I like this concept that Waze has come up with, but it maybe another attempt by google to give away something so Uber can not make money. I wonder how Google plans to advertise to the carpooling person.
Apple just needs to improve on Waze so I can stop using a Google owned product.
Not sure why this is related to Apple. It's not something they would ever implement into maps. They'd leave it up to a third party app to create this workflow and then (very unlikely) embed it into maps in like iOS 14.
Do you REALLY think Apple wants to take up the responsibility of managing carpooling under it's brand? Would be a fucking PR nightmare when anything goes wrong- like someone being killed/raped/kidnapped. Even Google is not implementing it under its brand, leaving it to the Waze app as that creates some distance.
Carpooling with STRANGERS looks very risky to me.
I did say very unlikely, and questioned why this was related to Apple, and said 3rd parties would handle it, and sarcastically said it would unlikely come 5 years from now so...so you should know what I thought.
Good point and Google probably owns Waze at arms length, there are probably many layers of legal companies of separation between Google and Waze, they same as when they bought Motorola, they keep motorola as separate LLC company so all the lawsuites they were fighting with Apple could not reach into Google pockets since Motorola was losing money.
Yeah I can see this turning into a real nightmare. I just want Apple Maps to do crowd sourcing traffic prediction and rerouting like Waze does. That would be a win for Apple Maps.
Google Maps, of course, has had public transit directions for years. Apple Maps has a great deal of catching up to do in that respect, as transit directions at the launch of iOS 9 will only be available in a limited number of cities.
Apple Maps does show superiority for directions.
A few days ago Google gave driving directions to a house in our city, which we know couldn't be done because of a street center divider which Google Maps drove right over.
Apple Macs gave the correct route, PERFECTLY.
This isn't the first time Google Maps has shown an incorrect route. It's happened several times before, before we had Apple Maps to check out the route. A few times when Google didn't give us the correct route to a hotel; when we finally found the hotel they had a sign at the desk saying: "don't use Google Maps to find us".
Do you REALLY think Apple wants to take up the responsibility of managing carpooling under it's brand? Would be a fucking PR nightmare when anything goes wrong- like someone being killed/raped/kidnapped. Even Google is not implementing it under its brand, leaving it to the Waze app as that creates some distance.
Yes Google is sticking it's neck out for lawsuits if things go wrong.
Then Google is really sticking it's neck out with those driverless cars.
The lengths Google will go to for more advertising revenue are becoming quite a reach.
I am surprised they don't test this out in San Francisco. In the Bay area, it is pretty common to pick up random passengers near BART stations so that you can take the carpool lane over the Bay Bridge. WAZE's carpool service might actually increase security if everyone has to sign up and pay a modest sum for the ride.