Waze for Android and iPhone gets updated. “Road Goodies” brings Pac-Man like gaming and monetary rewards to driving.
Think what you will, but navigation apps are pretty much reaching the end of the “feature ladder”. That is, there really isn’t much else you can add to GPS/navigation apps or hardware that will make it any more beneficial. Sure you can find ways to connect the device to more aspects of our lives, but all in all, getting from point A to point B with some goodies in between is straightforward (figuratively). One part of navigation devices (especially software in mobile applications) that frustrates drivers most is coming into a “dead zone”, or an area without any helpful/useful information. This type of frustration usually pertains to user generated mapping services as such a set up is highly customizable and frequently updated though does suffer from basic flaws. Namely, if no one ventures to a particular spot, little information is collected and retained for future users.
With that said, you may recall an app by the name of “Waze” that we covered a couple months back here and here. Just in case you missed the previous posts, the basic concept is easy to understand: Waze is a fast and intuitive user generated turn-by-turn app that manages to retail for free. As mentioned above, areas with little user travel created dead spots in Waze’s mapping data. The problem is obviously figuring out how to get more people traveling though said areas. The solution is clever to say the least. Turn it into a game. A Pac-Man like game called “Road Goodies”… (Video and more inside!)
