Over the weekend, I found myself saying, “I’ve had it with you, Google Maps!” It was a straw-that-broke-the-camel’s-back situation: The app wasn’t working as expected, failing to start navigation, and the ever-growing klunkiness of the interface was really getting to me.

Also: Got an old car? Android Auto is easy to add: 2 ways, starting at $20

There were other issues that involved a lake’s name, but we won’t get into that. After that proverbial final straw fell, I immediately installed Waze on my Pixel 9 Pro. I’d used Waze before on previous Pixel phones, but for whatever reason, I stopped. Now, I was determined to make it my default mapping app.

Little did I know how frustrating that would be.

In its infinite wisdom, Google decided it wasn’t going to allow users to easily set a different app as the default mapping tool on the Pixel. It used to be very easy: install the new app, navigate to default apps, and set it as such. That’s no longer the case after the August Android update .…