POPULAR map app Waze suffered a mysterious glitch on Wednesday that led to the language randomly changing on people’s phones.
A surge in reports was noticed by the Down Detector website, with more than 500 picked up around midday UK time.
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Users shared screenshots of their Waze app changing to alternative languages on social media.
The strange issue led many to question whether the platform had been hacked – but Waze disputed this concern, telling The Sun it was down to an internal bug.
A spokesperson for the Google-owned app said: “We’re aware of an issue impacting the language selection of Waze users and are working to quickly resolve.”
The issue problem has since been resolved.
And it’s not clear how widely the glitch impacted the service’s estimated 140million users.
The Sun tested the app and had no issues, suggesting it may have been isolated to some users.
“What’s going on there in your headquarters? Why do the car icons and languages keep changing in the app?” one driver wrote on X.
“for some reason today my Waze app keeps on changing languages – and adding some weird exemptions in Hebrew – do you know why?” another commented.
“Is Waze hacked?” a third said.
People also complained about other strange changes during the glitch.
This included their car icon appearing as a taxi instead.
Deleting and re-installing the app didn’t appear to resolve it.
What is Waze?
Waze is a community-driven navigation app that gives real-time updates on routes for drivers.
Originally developed in 2008 by an Israeli company, it was acquired by Google in 2013 and has operated since as a subsidiary of Alphabet Inc.
How is it different to Google Maps?
While Waze and Google Maps have similar functionalities, Waze is specifically designed for drivers focusing on analysing real-time data to provide the fastest routes.
While Google Maps offers walkers, cyclers, public transport routes, as well as for drivers.
