User Manual

This Help file describes waze touch screen version. There may be slight differences between the versions for different phones, but most features will look and work the same.

Starting waze and creating an account

To open the program – press the waze icon on the phone desktop. ’’’If you are a new user, you will get a welcome message and a request to accept waze's terms of use. Click the Accept button to continue to use waze, or the Decline button to exit the program.’’’ If you have accepted the terms of use, you will next get a form to create your account. You are asked to provide a username and password, an email address, and optionally to choose a waze nickname, which is used to identify you on the map and in reports you send, should you choose to be identified. (You define how far you want to be identified in your Profile – see the Settings section).

• Tap the first line of the form (Username). A virtual keyboard display will come up.
• Enter the username you'd like. Then tap the Next button to be prompted for the next line of the form (password).
• After you have proceeded to fill in all the form in this way, waze will display the filled-in form (your password will be displayed as five stars no matter how long it actually is).
• If the information is the way you want it, tap Create to create your account. If not, tap the line you want to change.

After creating your account you will be asked to sign in. You only have to do this once: your phone will thereafter be logged in automatically. You will only have to log in again if:

• The required user name is already taken.
• You are using the user name and password you created on a different phone, and you made a mistake when logging in. Then you'll get a "wrong login" message and will be returned to the screen displaying your username (and hidden password) so that you can change them as necessary. (Note: to change your username you should first log in to the waze.com site and change it there, then update your phone).
• Someone else using another phone is logged in to your account. In this case you will not get an error message; your internet connection will keep going on and off. (We suggest you avoid giving your login details to friends – they can create their own accounts.)

Once you have an account that you've previously logged in to, starting waze will bring you directly to the main screen. To save battery consumption, it's a good idea to close waze when you leave your car and to minimize it or shut off the display whenever you don't need it.

Overview: What do you See?

The Waze screen has the following main sections:

• A top status bar
  
  
• the main screen where the map is displayed
• A side bar with 2 icons: a compass and a map edit icon
• A green ticker symbol on the right hand, which accesses information about your current points gained
• Text buttons at the bottom of the screen for the four main waze functions:
  • Me on Map (display where you are right now). On some versions, you will see only a bulls-eye icon with no text
  • Search (e.g. for fastest route to a location)
  • Events (view live reports of events in your area)
  • Report (enter your own reports of events)

Initially the main screen displays "me on map" - a map showing your location and an icon for your car on it. You can only see the map if you have full GPS connectivity. If you're in an area where GPS reception is partial, you will see map with a big cursor displaying your approximate location. If you don’t have any GPS reception at all, a map of your last known location will be displayed with no identifier of your current location.

The Main Screen

By default, the main screen displays the map of your area with your current location on it. You can change the map display in several ways:

• Drag the screen to move the map in the direction you drag it (you can also move the map using your phone's wheel/trackball/arrow buttons).
• Tap the screen (one short tap) to open the sidebar menu (described below) – allowing you to zoom in and out and to mark a location
• Tap and hold (a long tap) on a road or highway to highlight it and display a few options for interacting with it:

• • Set as departure - use this location as the departure point for your route. If you haven't chosen this option and you request a route, your current location will be used as the departure point.
  • Set as destiantion – this location is the destination point of your route. If you choose this option, you won't need to enter an address for your destination when requesting a route.
  • Properties - lets you view more information about the road you've selected, such as its length, average speed, average time to drive it, the type of road (e.g. highway, city street), and its name and the name of the city it's in.
• You can return to the default display of your current location at any time by hitting the “x” and closing this menu.