Waze rolling out audio player with support for Spotify, Pandora, TuneIn, iHeartRadio & more

In beta since October 29, Waze’s new built-in audio player began rolling out today in Waze 4.45 for iPhone and iPad, now available on App Store The crowd-sourced navigation app implemented this feature so that users would get lost in their music, not on the road, without having to switch apps while navigating.

You can listen to music, podcasts and more, all within Waze, with the following audio sources supported at launch: Spotify, Pandora, Deezer, iHeartRadio, NPR One, Scribd, Stitcher and TuneIn. Thanks to these partners, you can choose from podcasts, audiobooks, radio and spoken news.

From Waze’s announcement post:

Built to make sure every Wazer can have the best time possible on the road, the Waze Audio Player seamlessly streams your favorite audio app with your Waze directions and alerts. You can control your audio app of choice in Waze and vice versa — you can even toggle between apps. So you can get lost in the music (or podcasts or audiobooks or radio or news) and not on the road.

To use this functionality, update your third-party audio app to the latest version. Next, sync Waze with your preferred audio app, then tap its icon in the Waze audio player and select Connect.

TUTORIAL: How to transfer playlists between music service with TuneMyMusic

This is a staggered release.

The audio player feature is rolling out to the entire Waze community in stages. The process can take a few weeks so check back later if you don’t yet see the audio player in your Waze app.

To be among the first to know of Waze’s upcoming features, join their Beta Community.

Waze for iOS is a free download from App Store.