Listening to music, podcasts, and audiobooks while driving can make or break your commutes and long road trips. Engaging audio content keeps you entertained and alert, but you don't want to get your eyes off the road to switch between your navigation app and music app simply to skip ahead or rewind. This is why Waze added Spotify integration last year, and is now expanding its in-app player to seven more partners.

The new additions to Waze are Pandora, Deezer, iHeart Radio, NPR One, Scribd, Stitcher, and TuneIn. However, Android users won't be able to link Deezer (at least not yet), and iOS users won't have access to Pandora, NPR, or TuneIn (again, not yet).

Waze beta community members (you can apply here) will be able to test these integrations first. A new music icon will pop up if they have any of the apps listed above installed, and they can tap it to link the service and begin listening to music. Basic controls are available in the overlay, as well as options to change the content you're listening to and open the full app.

Waze says that interested audio partners can apply for access to the Audio Kit, though maybe they should start by calling up their Google teammates and asking them to integrate YouTube Music and Google Play Audiobooks. Or they could all have a meeting with the Google Maps team and decide on which apps they want/don't want to include in their in-app audio player. When the latter rolled out a similar feature, it supported Spotify, Play Music, and Apple Music. Looking in from the outside, it sure seems that the communication lines between Waze and Google are broken.

UPDATE: 2019/02/15 5:08am PST BY SCOTT SCRIVENS

Deezer's integration with Waze is now live

A few months after being announced, drivers now have access to Deezer's vast library directly through the Waze app. You can choose from 53 million tracks, stick on a podcast, or make use of the Flow feature that creates a personalized playlist of your all-time favs with a few new recommendations. To celebrate the partnership, Deezer has created a few special playlists to soundtrack your rides. Look for Deezer in the Waze music player to link your account.

Source: Waze