Waze GPS & Traffic review [iPhone]

GPS and navigation apps always used to represent the serious side of the iPhone, with the big companies offering massive downloads at high prices for a way to plan your driving routes. Recently all that's been changing, as smaller developers get in on the route planning action and create navigation apps that, quite frankly, make the big name apps look archaic.

Not least of this new breed of affordable - and even fun - navigation apps is Waze GPS & Traffic. For one thing, it's free. That's got to kick TomTom in the ribs and make it sting. But it doesn't skimp on the functionality just because it's a freebie.

Waze GPS & Traffic has a inventively unique concept at its core that feeds into the iPhone habits of the younger, but still lost, generation. This is a socially networked navigation app, and doesn't earn that accolade simply by posting Tweets about where you've been and where you're going.

There's a solid map and route planning option in Waze GPS & Traffic, around which its impressive crowd-sourced features are based. So, naturally, you can use it just like you'd use TomTom, or the native Google Maps app to find places and figure out how to get to them. The maps are pulled in from the Internet, so you're not lumbered with a big, heavy, easily outdated app, although it does mean you need a net connection.

The app doesn't stop once the driving starts, however. This is a community-based experience that feeds live data about traffic to your iPhone from other users also running Waze GPS & Traffic as they pootle around in their motors. And you're encouraged to do likewise, with the app monitoring a bunch of factors such as driving speeds and real-time locations of other users (privacy settings dependent, of course).

Joining up with other local groups, in a socially networked manner, allows you to become part of a road network that becomes increasingly intelligent and accurate as more people participate. If there's a jam, or a speed trap, or some kind of hazard in the road, you can report it and let other Waze GPS & Traffic users know to avoid the area.

Should you receive such a report, or a road blockage is currently on the Waze horizon, the app intelligently plans - or recalculates - your route around them to minimise your journey times. During testing this feature kicked in almost immediately, and while it wasn't anything like the kind of minor traffic incident you'd expect to hear on the radio, the app astutely cut ten minutes off our trip by letting us know that temporary road works were gumming things up just around the corner.

So many apps lay claim to social networking features, but Waze GPS & Traffic is one of the few that is building a very focused and essential social component into its operation that any user would be delighted to contribute to.