The World Cup is in full swing and, with it, many are glued to finding out the scores of each match. Waze, though, has rolled out a new enabled-by-default feature that shows World Cup scores as a pop-up for drivers. Great if you’re an avid fan, less so if you’re just trying to get directions home, and user reactions are pretty mixed.
Quietly rolling out, Waze will now show pop-ups for World Cup matches as events happen. This could include the end of a match, or simply a goal in the match as one driver noticed (pictured above, image via u/yayoshorti on Reddit) on CarPlay. The pop-up appears just like a typical road hazard alert, just with the brief description and the teams for that match. Some have noted that the notifications are actually a bit larger than some hazard alerts.
As far as we can tell, this feature is supposed to be enabled only when the vehicle is not in motion. But, as shown in the screenshot above, it’s happening while actively driving as well.
One user also captured a pop-up where Waze would customize the alerts to specific teams.
The good news here, though, is that it can all be turned off, whether you want to remove it simply for the sake of it being too distracting, or if you’re just not a fan of the World Cup in general.
