A Complete Guide On Developing a GPS Navigation App Like Waze

7 min readSep 6, 2021

GPS applications are hugely popular due to their practicality. When you come to a new city, you will hardly use a paper map. There is a wide variety of map applications, each of which offers additional options to users. What Are the Uses of GPS?

In this article, we will look at the features of navigation applications and how to create an application like the canon one in its field — Waze.

Geolocation Apps Market Overview

The navigation apps market, like many other areas, has been heavily impacted by COVID. If until 2020 the top spheres that regularly use geolocation are tourism and logistics, then medical services and retail trade have joined them.

According to experts’ forecasts, in the next five years, the service market, based on the determination of geolocation, will significantly increase, showing an average growth of 17% per year. By the end of 2021, the total market value will be about $ 17.8 billion, and by 2025 it will reach $ 39.2 billion. It should be noted that these statistics also include applications that use geolocation to increase the performance of the application.

GPS is used as a tool in many industries at companies of all sizes. In addition to making clear maps, the technology allows you to measure time and control navigation.

GPS applications can be divided into 5 large groups:

Tracking (object or own movement).
Location (automatic detection).
Navigation (building routes for movement).
Cartography (drawing up maps of the area).
Time (accurate measurement of time).

Less obvious uses for GPS include military, fishing, agriculture, and mobile communications.

What Is the Waze App?

Waze is a quality GPS navigation app that includes a number of advanced features. The app is second only to Google Maps in popularity. In the application, you can get full information about the state of the roads, including accidents.

At the end of 2020, the app had 130 million monthly active users and an estimated cost of $ 37.7 million.

Waze allows users to add information in real time. Thus, when composing a route for you, the application takes into account all the parameters. Waze is heavily used by some taxi companies.

What Makes Waze So Popular?

The phenomenon of the navigation app Waze’s popularity lies in its adaptability to the needs of users. In addition, they can participate in the improvement of the product themselves. The navigation of the application is as simple and convenient as possible, and new functions are added based on the wishes of the community.

The application is also convenient for businesses that want to gain new customers and expand their market influence. At the same time, all offers for a client are formed on the basis of information about him received through integrations with social networks and other platforms.

How Does Waze Work And Make Money?

Waze makes money from ads, and ad matching isn’t just based on region. but also your destination. Thus, the user receives the most relevant advertising with a prepared message from the local business.

In fact, Waze trades your navigation options for your permission to receive your location information.

Among the options for how Waze interacts with users:

Zero-Speed Takeovers is an ad that appears when you are delayed for more than 3 seconds.
Promoted Search Ads — Recommend shops and establishments when you’re looking for something.
Branded icons — symbolic designation of gas stations, shops, and so on on the map along your route.
In addition, Waze offers car sharing and partnerships with the world’s largest companies such as Amazon.

Key Features for Geolocation Apps Like Waze

All features of the navigation app can be divided into basic and advanced. Let’s consider them separately.

Basic Features for a Navigation App

Authorization and user profiles

In addition to the ability to enter information about situations on the route, users are able to communicate with other users. This builds a loyal community and allows you to improve your app.

Geolocation and navigation

The card is at the heart of such an application to ensure its full, uninterrupted operation. More accurate performance is achieved thanks to the combined efforts of GPS and Cell ID.

Voice prompts

This is especially handy for driver users who don’t want to be distracted by their phones. One of the features of this function may be the ability to select a voice from the list.

Route change

Rerouting may be required for many reasons: accidents, repair, traffic jams, and so on. The restructuring should be instant, the user at the wheel does not want and cannot wait long.

Social media integration

This also comes in handy for authentication and helps in generating more relevant advertising offers. This integration will also improve user experience and user experience with your application.

Advanced Features of a Waze-Like App

Messages in the app

Push notifications, chats, and communication with the support should be convenient and important for users.

Payment services

In-app purchases are another benefit your users will take advantage of. You can enter into partnership agreements or consider a cashback system, encouraging users to use the application even more often.

These are just a few of the functions that can be used in applications like Waze.

8 Steps to Developing a GPS Navigation App Like Waze

Apps like Waze can have a wide variety of functions, but there is a list of required parameters that are relevant for all navigation apps.

Let’s consider the sequence of actions when developing such applications.

1. Research to study competitors

You must analyze your competitors and understand their strengths and weaknesses. You must have a clear idea of what you can improve and how exactly to attract the user. Also think about how you should plan your work, even with testing in mind.

2. Decide on a technical partner

Explore the portfolios of companies with the potential to do navigation app development. Better to use the help of a company that already has experience with such applications.

3. Listen to your target audience

The more modern and intelligent the application, the more interest it will generate from the user. Add for example information about speed cameras or designate parking spots, this will be well received by users.

4. As many convenient functions as possible

The more additional features and integrations there are, the higher the chance that users will choose your application over competitors.

5. Add gamification features.

It can be a system for awarding points for some actions within the ecosystem of the application. Or any other interaction with the system and within it, with the aim of improving.

6. Thoughtful UI / UX design

The user interface should not be confusing or cluttered. All buttons and functions should be intuitive.

7. Voice prompts

This feature makes search and navigation safer and more enjoyable. Voice control is an important aspect, for example, the Google Maps Directions API is perfect for this.

8. Add video while publishing app

A video guide is a convenient and popular format for getting to know your application. In addition, this is one of the requirements when publishing an application in Google or Apple stores.

The Best Tech Stack For the GPS Navigation App

The tech stack will depend on what you want to include in the feature list. Also, a lot depends on whether the application is native or cross-platform and what technologies your mobile app development company works with.

Let’s take a look at the basic stack required to develop a navigation app.

iOS mobile app development:

Swift / Objective-C (as a programming language)
Google Maps API
Core Location API
Google Maps SDK
Apple MapKit

Android app development:

Kotlin / Java (programming language)
Google Maps API and MapView class
Google Maps Directions API
Google Distance Matrix API
Google Location Services API
android.location package

If we are talking about PWA, then you still need to use the Ionic framework, Apache Cordova. You should also consider improving the application through the use of additional APIs, for example, Facebook Places, Foursquare API, Yelp API, etc.

Assistive technologies include W3C Geolocation API, HTML5 Geolocation API, MapKit JS.

When it comes to security, this is where the SSL certificate comes in handy, it is used to encrypt data transmission.

How Much Does a Waze-Like App Costs

Developers’ hourly rates vary by country and tier. If the studio is located, for example, in Ukraine, an hour of the developer’s time can cost an average of $25 to $50. A developer from the United States will cost from $80 to $200, and in Western Europe from $75 to $100.

Thus, the Waze-like app cost can range from $25,000 to $60,000. By working with outsourcing companies, you can get a clear idea of the cost of the project even at the planning stage, but for this, you should first conduct an in-depth analysis of the niche.

Minimum Viable Product (MVP) has another price.

TopDevs’ Experience in Geolocation App Development

The TopDevs portfolio contains an example of using GPS technology to develop an application. We are talking about Solocator app, an application that allows you to take a photo, indicating compass direction, GPS location, altitude, date, time, etc.

The Industry Pack includes additional features such as creating editable notes, using custom export options, and tracking photos in map view. Using this application, users can easily navigate to the location where the photo was taken.

Conclusions

The use of GPS navigation helps users and businesses. Finding the necessary points on the map and drawing up a comfortable route, taking into account the situation on the road, is the best solution to use in the mobile app development process. The Waze app is the best example of how GPS can be used within an app. Using such a reference will allow you to offer users something completely unique and useful.