If you’ve spent any time behind the wheel on Android Auto in the past couple of years, you’ve probably encountered the pop-up alerts on Google Maps and realized just how distracting they can be. Now, Google is rolling out a redesign and it’s a huge improvement.
Google Maps incident reports, the hallmark feature of Waze, rolled out in 2024. It took a few months to land on Android Auto, and started integrating Waze reports not long after. Google has tweaked the feature over the past couple of years, but one thing it didn’t address was the design.
That design was a bit controversial, with some finding the pop-ups distracting as they’d replace your written directions and/or ETA for several moments unless you interact with the overlay. In a 2025 poll, a number of 9to5Google readers were in favor of the existing design, while most others found it at least a little distracting.
Here’s what it looked like on a Subaru Crosstrek in early 2025:
Now, Google is rolling out a redesign.
