There is fresh movement around Waze is pushing World Cup pop-ups onto your screen while driving, here's how to…, and the story is worth a closer look.
We pulled together what is known so far and what it could mean for the people following it.
Earlier this month, Google shared how it was helping users catch every moment of the FIFA World Cup. This included not just upgrades to Google Search, AI Mode, and Gemini to surface relevant World Cup-related information, but also upgrades for Maps and Waze.
The navigation apps, as expected, surface the latest information about traffic, road closures, pedestrian zones, transit routes and more, making it easier for users to navigate to games and around the city.
The tech giant also updated Street View imagery of stadiums hosting matches, making it easier for you to scope out the area before you arrive.
As part of the update, Waze also received live score updates. When first announced, Google said that users would be able to "see live score updates at a glance whenever your car is stopped."
Waze isn't pushing simple glanceable updates. It is highlighting scores via pop-ups that take up a significant portion of the display, with one user saying that the pop-up takes up more space than the 'police nearby' alerts.
More importantly, user yayoshorti's Reddit post clearly highlights that the score alerts are popping up even when users are driving. The speedometer (on the top right) shows the user driving at 15mph.
Users are also unhappy with the fact that the pop-up has been forced upon them. "A popup asking if you wanted to enable the new and important 'feature' would have been nice," wrote one user, while a different one wrote "I'm a sports fan and this is annoying to me. I don’t need additional alerts or pop-ups for stuff that has nothing to do with navigation, road conditions, etc.. it’s just another unnecessary thing to distract someone while they’re driving."
If you're someone that's finding the pop-ups more distracting than informative, you can disable the feature. Here's how:
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