Google Maps received a bunch of new features earlier this month to help spice up your road trip, including Spotify, Apple Music, and Google Play Music integrations to let you easily manage your soundtrack. Now, Waze is following suit by adding a built-in audio player in beta form to its Android and iOS apps.
Waze announced today that as part of this new release, it has teamed up with new audio partners including Pandora, Deezer, iHeartRadio, NPR One, Scribd, Stitcher, and TuneIn to provide you the option to listen to podcasts, audiobooks, radio, and news from a wide range of streaming services while on the road. These partners complement Spotify, which partnered with Waze in March last year to let users access their playlist from the mapping app.
To get started with the new integration, simply get the latest versions of the partner audio apps and sync them with Waze by tapping their icon in the audio player. Once the mapping app and your streaming service of choice are connected, you can toggle between them and control Pandora, for example, in Waze or the other way around.
It should be noted, however, that the streaming services are not altogether available on all Waze versions for every platform (see the compatibility chart below).
It"s worth pointing out that Apple Music and Google Play Music are not supported, which means you may need to use Google Maps instead if you prefer those services. The native audio player will be available to the entire Waze community in the coming weeks once beta testing is complete.