By: Nick Gambino
There are two things we’re pretty much guaranteed to do with our phones when we’re in our cars – listen to music and navigate using GPS. Now Spotify and Waze have partnered up to make this experience as seamless as possible.
The problem they’re looking to solve is something we’ve all experienced – the two don’t really go hand in hand. In fact, it’s like two children fighting over their parent’s attention with GPS usually winning out when it cuts off your music.
The new partnership between the GPS app (Waze) and streaming music app (Spotify) will result in an integration between the two allowing for control of one app while in another.
For example, when you’re in the Waze app you’ll be able to see what you’re listening to on Spotify. You’ll have the use of basic controls to skip to another song. Now obviously when in the GPS app you’ll only be able to browse Spotify music when the car isn’t moving. That’s just road safety 101.
While in the Spotify app you’ll see the next step in directions from Waze and will be able to start routing a trip.
It’s interesting to note that Waze is owned by Google but they decided not to integrate this feature with their own streaming service, Google Play Music. I guess it makes sense as Spotify is the leading music streaming service with over 100 million users (50 million of those paid). You might as well start with the top shelf for marketing purposes and then branch out from there.
Now unfortunately the new integration updates are only available to Android users (because the world isn’t fair). Apparently iOS will be coming at some point but we don’t have any word on when.
What are your thoughts on Spotify and Waze integrating their services? Do you even use Waze or would you prefer this feature for Google Maps? Let us know in the comments below!
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Nick Gambino is a regular script writer and tech beat reporter for NewsWatch. He lives in Northern Virginia with his wife and daughter.
