Hello Waze Team,
I am a loyal Waze user driving an older vehicle with an aftermarket external CarPlay screen. Currently, iOS forces all audio (music and navigation) into a single "Media" channel whenever CarPlay is active. This causes a major safety and user experience issue:
If I want to listen to music (e.g., Demus/Spotify) as a quiet background sound, Waze’s navigation prompts become completely inaudible. If I turn up the car's volume to hear Waze clearly, the background music becomes dangerously loud.
I have tried maximizing Waze's volume slider to 100%, but it still fails to create a sufficient volume gap with music apps due to CarPlay's forced mixing logic.
I strongly suggest Waze implement the following features under CarPlay mode:
1. Advanced Volume Booster / Independent Scaling: Allow users to boost Waze's voice guidance gain even further (e.g., up to 150% or 200%).
2. Force HFP (Hands-Free Profile) Option: Unblock the "Play as Bluetooth phone call" feature even when CarPlay is connected, allowing navigation to route through the car's native Bluetooth phone channel instead of the CarPlay media channel.
This would tremendously help millions of drivers using older car stereos and external screens. Thank you for your consideration!