Waze offers lane guidance in beta

Waze appears to be catching up on an important staple of phone navigation apps: lane guidance. GeekTime (via Android Police) has noticed that the Waze beta now tells you which lane to use so that you won’t be caught off-guard when your exit appears. You’ll see the lane marking at the top of the screen, with the one you need highlighted. The cues won’t appear until you’re about 500m (about 0.31mi) away on streets or 1km (0.62mi) on highways, so they won’t chew up screen real estate until it’s time to change lanes.

The feature is reportedly live for all Waze beta users. We wouldn’t count on the finished lane guidance arriving for a while, or looking as it does by the time it reaches completed versions of the app. It could be a valuable upgrade when it’s completely ready, though. Waze is frequently a go-to navigation app for its crowdsourced alerts and rerouting, but the absence of lane guidance was holding it back for some drivers. Now, it makes a more compelling case for itself over the standard app that came with your phone.

Reporting by Jon Fingas for Engadget.