Waze Free GPS Navigation App for Android

Waze GPS is a free turn-by-turn GPS navigation app with user-generated, real-time traffic updates and social networking elements. It’s the first dynamic traffic platform which combines GPS, open-source software, and a community of drivers.

Waze users share real-time information on quickly changing, dynamic road conditions such as slow traffic, road-blocking accidents, police speed traps, and construction. Waze collects this information, analyzes it, and gives Waze drivers the most optimal routes to their destinations, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Waze is a Not Just an Android App, It’s a Smart App

Commuters normally can drive more than one route to arrive at their destinations, but without information, they don’t really know which route is best at any given moment? With Waze, you just enter your beginning and destination addresses, drive three to four times along different routes, and Waze creates the most time-efficient route for that moment in time – saving you time and money.

How Waze Uses Social Networking

Drivers using Waze can easily join or create groups, allowing members to view each other on the map and communicate with each another while on the road. Use Twitter to tweet your activities to your followers on Waze, and connect to Facebook to see all of your Waze-using Facebook friends around you on the map.

You will need A GPS-enabled Android smartphone and a data plan to receive and deliver real-time road information for your preferred route.

Here’s what one reviewer said, “My commute is rather long, so this app is very helpful. It learns your preferred routes. It tells you about problems, even on roads that aren’t monitored by fixed systems. It lets you report problems you encounter. Map corrections are completed within a day or two of being reported, and you get an email when a problem you reported has been corrected. I run it any time I’m driving, even when I don’t need directions,” while another said, “This is the only app I can’t go a day without. I love being able to see a user’s report on an accident/hazard ahead and now understand why traffic is not moving. Routes are sometimes off a bit, but as more people use this the better they will get.”

The new Amazon Kindle Fire is a full-blown Android tablet for only $199. However, by default, Google Maps is not installed and neither is the Android Market, but this doesn’t mean you can’t install Google Maps – you just can’t do it from Amazon’s App Store.

The workaround is to use an Android phone which can access the Android Market.

And the best part? You don’t need to “root” your phone or Kindle Fire tablet to do this PLUS Amazon doesn’t oppose adding apps in this way (like Barnes and Noble did initially with the Nook Color).

The Kindle Fire can install any app in the standard Android APK format and you can find APKs scattered around the Internet on various sites, but it’s recommended to only use the ones found in the Android Market to avoid infecting your phone or tablet.

Next, we’ll explain how to move any Android APK app from an Android phone running Gingerbread (Android 2.3 – check your system settings to know for sure) to a Kindle Fire.

7 Steps to Installing Google Maps on the Kindle Fire

1. Using Astro File Manager on your Android phone, change the Preferences of the Backup Directory to “/mnt/sdcard-ext” or “/mnt/external-sd” or “sdcard”, whatever the MicroSD card is called. Click OK twice, then Back three times.
2. Still in Astro File Manager, click ”Application Backup” then select Google Maps and any other apps you want to move to the Kindle Fire. Click Backup. The Android APK files have now been copied to your external MicroSD card.
3. Now hook your Android phone up to your PC using a USB cable. Open the drive which appears on your PC, and look for the “backups” folder. Open the “apps” folder within backups. Copy all the APK files from there onto your PC.
4. Now pick up your Kindle Fire and browse to the Appstore for Android to download “Easy Installer” from INFOLIFE. Don’t worry, it’s free.
5. Plug your Kindle Fire into your PC using a USB cable and when it’s drive appears on your PC, copy the Android APK files (Google Maps and whatever else you copied) into it.
6. Now disconnect the Kindle Fire from the PC and open Easy Installer in Apps. You will be able to choose an app to install from a list of the APK files you copied.
7. Choose Google Apps and any other apps you want to install and click, “Install Selected Apps.” You now have Google Maps installed on your Amazon Kindle Fire!