The Waze application finally reaches infotainment systems

Waze is an application for smartphones or mobile devices, owned by Google since 2013, based on satellite navigation and containing essential information for drivers. And the world's largest community of drivers.

For you who know and use Waze on a daily basis, we know very well why you do it, in addition to wanting to “escape” traffic. Okay, we got away with it too.

For this same reason, we had already asked ourselves several times why nobody had put it in car infotainment systems yet, since lately it has been one of the great evolutions in cars — connectivity.

The answer to our prayers has now come at the hands of Ford, the first manufacturer to integrate the application into its SYNC3 infotainment system. Through AppLink, it will be possible to use Waze through the car system screen instead of having to do it on the mobile phone.

It will not only be possible to use navigation through the application, but also interact with the sharing of information and also through voice commands, typical of systems that equip Ford models.

This possibility was revealed during the last CES (Consumer Electronics Show), where it was possible to verify the functioning of the systems, which, by connecting the device to the car, via USB, projects the device information on the screen of the car's multimedia system.

Our aim is to bring a human-centric approach to in-vehicle technology, making it easier for people to integrate the tools that matter most to them.

Don Butler, CEO of Ford Connected Vehicle and Services

Over the next few weeks, any 2018 Ford model vehicle equipped with SYNC 3, version 3.0 or higher, will be able to use the new functionality. Other Ford vehicles with SYNC 3 will be able to receive the update automatically, or via USB, to be able to use the new Waze functionality.

For now, we still don't have confirmation that it is working in Portugal, but it will certainly happen soon with the aforementioned update. Unfortunately, and by heresy, the functionality that allows the use of the Google application on the Ford system will only be available for iOS devices (Apple).