How to open Waze and navigate by address

Question

Good night, you guys

How do I open Waze in the app and set the address via string (I want to navigate directly by address, not by coordinates) Right now, I’m doing it this way:

func showWazeNaviationWithUrl(_ strURL: String) {
    if let url = URL(string: "waze://") {
        if UIApplication.shared.canOpenURL(url) {
            if let url = URL(string: strURL) {
                UIApplication.shared.openURL(url)
            }
        } else {
            //Waze is not installed. Launch AppStore to install Waze app
            if let url = URL.init(string: "https://itunes.apple.com/app/id323229106") {
                UIApplication.shared.openURL(url)
            }
        }

in another class that fires this method, I have the following:

   func startNavigation(address: String) {

        var allowedQueryParamAndKey = NSCharacterSet.urlQueryAllowed
        allowedQueryParamAndKey.remove(charactersIn: ";/?:@&=+$, ")
        let _address = address.addingPercentEncoding(withAllowedCharacters: allowedQueryParamAndKey)

        let strURL = String(format: "https://waze.com/ul?ll=%@&navigate=yes", _address!)
        self.delegate?.showWazeNaviationWithUrl(strURL)
    }

After all this is executed, the app opens however, it doesn’t open the navigation window... It just sits on the map.

My String with the address is as follows:

"https://waze.com/ul?ll=R%20VISCONDE%20DE%20URUGUAI%20%2C%20311%20%20-%20CENTRONiter%C3%B3i%20-%20RJ&navigate=yes"

Answer 1

If you build using iOS SDK 9.0 and newer versions, you need to add the following code to your app’s Info.plist file to include Waze:

<key>LSApplicationQueriesSchemes</key>
<array>
  <string>waze</string>
</array>

The following code example will navigate to latitude/longitude if Waze is installed. Otherwise, the Apple app store will open for the user to install the app:

- (void) navigateToLatitude:(double)latitude longitude:(double)longitude
{
  if ([[UIApplication sharedApplication]
    canOpenURL:[NSURL URLWithString:@"waze://"]]) {
      // O Waze está instalado. Inicia o Waze e a navegação com base na latitude e longitude
      NSString *urlStr =
        [NSString stringWithFormat:@"https://waze.com/ul?ll=%f,%f&navigate=yes",
        latitude, longitude];
      [[UIApplication sharedApplication] openURL:[NSURL URLWithString:urlStr]];
  } else {
    // O Waze não está instalado. Inicia a AppStore para instalar o Waze
    [[UIApplication sharedApplication] openURL:[NSURL
      URLWithString:@"http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/id323229106"]];
  }
}

If you need to convert an address to latitude and longitude, use Corelocation as in the example below:

import CoreLocation

var geocoder = CLGeocoder()
geocoder.geocodeAddressString("Seu endereço") {
    placemarks, error in
    let placemark = placemarks?.first
    let latitude = placemark?.location?.coordinate.latitude
    let longitude = placemark?.location?.coordinate.longitude
    print("Lat: \(latitude), Lon: \(longitude)")
}

Answer 2

Basically, your Query URL is wrong. Looking at the documentation of Waze, it is possible to verify that you are using the parameter ?ll=... instead of ?q=..., ie, you are looking through a parameter of Latitude and Longitude an address.

So, to search in the correct parameter (An address in an address), you must replace the following line:

let strURL = String(format: "https://waze.com/ul?ll=%@&navigate=yes", _address!)

for:

let strURL = String(format: "https://waze.com/ul?q=%@&navigate=yes", _address!)

Also, I could observe that the address you pass sometimes does not find results, as in the example below, where you look:

R VISCONDE DE URUGUAI , 311  - CENTRONiterói - RJ

If you check, the neighborhood and city are together, causing no results to appear. The test I did was changing the URL to the parameter ?q= and to the following address::

R VISCONDE DE URUGUAI , 311 Niterói

With these changes, you’ll start to get correct results in the integration between your app and Waze.