FlyQ EFB Lifetime Subscription

LDJones

LDJones

Touchdown! Greaser!
Gone West
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Jonesy
Seattle Avionics is offering a Lifetime Subscription to their EFB for Black Friday. It's $299 for VFR, $399 for IFR. So, essentially 2-3 years worth of subscriptions gets you a lifetime of updates.

Personally, I'm impressed by their product. It has the chart overlay feature like ForeFlight and has Synthetic Vision. I also like the way the handle download selections a bit better than FF, but they're not as fast downloading. It lacks FF's documents feature which I use a lot.

But lifetime updates is tempting. There is a caveat: if the FAA ever starts charging a per-user fee for their charts, they reserve the right to add a small charge to cover their out of pocket costs, which seems reasonable since all subs for all products will go up by at least that amount.

Anyone else tempted?
 
That assumes that both the APP and the company will still be around for a few years.

I found the app to run very slow on anything prior to the gen 1 iPad air, chart drawing/refresh etc was slow.
 
I got the e-mail from them also, Loren. I watched the 3 minute video. It looks pretty nice, and works with 9 different ADS-B input devices, so you are not locked in to Status like with ForeFlight. I am tempted.
 
LDJones said:
Seattle Avionics is offering a Lifetime Subscription to their EFB for Black Friday. It's $299 for VFR, $399 for IFR. So, essentially 2-3 years worth of subscriptions gets you a lifetime of updates.

Personally, I'm impressed by their product. It has the chart overlay feature like ForeFlight and has Synthetic Vision. I also like the way the handle download selections a bit better than FF, but they're not as fast downloading. It lacks FF's documents feature which I use a lot.

But lifetime updates is tempting. There is a caveat: if the FAA ever starts charging a per-user fee for their charts, they reserve the right to add a small charge to cover their out of pocket costs, which seems reasonable since all subs for all products will go up by at least that amount.

Anyone else tempted?
Click to expand...

I had the purchase form filled this morning but couldn't pull the trigger. There will be so much change over the next 3 years, I'm not sure I want to be locked into on app. I will say, I was very impressed with their latest version.
 
Just remember that, as someone mentioned, "lifetime" isn't your lifetime, it's the lifetime of the company or their inclination to continue to develop and support the product, whichever is least. Well, I suppose it might be your lifetime---but that's pretty unlikely to be the limit.
 
Scrabo said:
That assumes that both the APP and the company will still be around for a few years.

I found the app to run very slow on anything prior to the gen 1 iPad air, chart drawing/refresh etc was slow.
Click to expand...

Well,if they go away we are all hosed since ForeFlight and everyone else gets their charts through them.
 
somorris said:
I got the e-mail from them also, Loren. I watched the 3 minute video. It looks pretty nice, and works with 9 different ADS-B input devices, so you are not locked in to Status like with ForeFlight. I am tempted.
Click to expand...

That is the other plus I meant to mention.
 
Well, Seattle Avionics has been the sole provider of georef'd charts to people line WingX and Foreflight, etc... so they're probably going to be around a while. The only other player is Jepp (and boy they have NEVER quite understood software usability. I've looked at just about every product they've done and they are all somewhere between barely functional and clunky). Alas, the bigger issue is the longevity of the application that you're subscribing to.
You're committing to their app whether you decide you want to switch to another.

Further, there are projects underway for open source georef's so who knows what the future will bring. Remember, a few years ago there was no real such thing as a practical EFB. Things change fast in the industry.

However, if you can count on sticking with SA or three years or whatever, you'll still come out ahead.
 
flyingron said:
Well, Seattle Avionics has been the sole provider of georef'd charts to people line WingX and Foreflight, etc... so they're probably going to be around a while.
Click to expand...
Actually, I draw the opposite conclusion: Seattle Avionics is on thin ground.

First, they were at best an also-ran in the Windows EFB space, with a ponderously slow application that was far from being dominant in the market. In the tablet space, they were nowhere until AOPA brought them to the party and that party didn't last very long. So they are almost certainly not a financially strong company.

Yes, they are supplying the georeferenced versions of free government data. This is a sensible task for the likes of WingX and Foreflight to farm out because the tablet players are fighting for share by frenetically adding features --- every dime of investment money and every sentient being in the shop is critical to this fight. So why do the completely undifferentiated georeferencing dog work? No reason. Subcontract it.

But down the road, as the dust settles there are two existential risks for SA, one of which will almost certainly kill them. First, the WingXs and Foreflights will bring the dog work in house in order to capture the additional value added. As the products mature and share stabilizes, there will be financial resources and people resources to support this. Second, I think it is highly likely that the FAA will supply this data for free just like they supply chart data now. Why not? In fact, why do we now have to pay a third party to finish what is arguably the FAA's job?

So, I agree with others. "Lifetime" means SA's lifetime, which may not be that long.

Edit: A thread this morning that points to the insecurity of SA's georeferenced chart business: http://www.pilotsofamerica.com/forum/showthread.php?t=77100
 
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LDJones said:
Well,if they go away we are all hosed since ForeFlight and everyone else gets their charts through them.
Click to expand...

No: ForeFlight developed its own internal georeferencing capability several years ago, and hasn't used any data from SA since then.

I believe I saw Hilton say the same thing about WingX too, in another thread (I checked, it was on the red board).
 
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happypilot876 said:
No: ForeFlight developed its own internal georeferencing capability several years ago, and hasn't used any data from SA since then.

I believe I saw Hilton say the same thing about WingX too, in another thread (I checked, it was on the red board).
Click to expand...

The only reference on their site was the 2011 announcement they had partnered with Seattle Avionics for georeferenced charts.

http://blog.foreflight.com/tag/geo-ref/
 
LDJones said:
Well,if they go away we are all hosed since ForeFlight and everyone else gets their charts through them.
Click to expand...

ForeFlight does not purchase or use any data from Seattle Avionics.
 
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I did it a year or 2 ago and I asked what happened when apps changed/ dropped or were added and the response was that it worked for all apps. When their app surfaced, it was not applicable to their app and now only one of my apps still use their plates. Wing X just announced they were using their own, and My Wingman and another are dead applications. I can not stand the Skyradar app which is the only one now that I have that use their "lifetime" subscriptions. I declined to be taken the second time and I skipped their newest "lifetime" subscription. Aviation consumer has a nice review of the Fly Q EFB in their Dec edition. My frustration with Fly Q EFB has diminished with their new release 1.4; however, it still has issues in that it does not stay connected to my Dual 170 with an average of 2 drops every 10 minutes. I can get it reconnected by going to the settings app and then back to FLYQ EFB and it reconnects automatically. Also I do not think that it displays as much or as reliably ADS_B traffic as well as the Wing X Pro application. I still fly with it and Wing X pro with one on the iPad and the other on the mini. They did fix a 1.3 bug that required an internet connection to set up a flight plan.
 
Think about it. If you ran a company that generated an annuity-like stream of cash every year, why would you give that up for just three year's worth of cash?

Two possibilities come to mind, and they tell me to stay away:
1. The company is just about out of cash, and they are desperate.
2. Customer churn is high because the product isn't competitive, and this way they can get three years of cash from you instead of just one, before you flee.
 
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NoHeat said:
Apparently Foreflight is not desperate for cash, and their customers stick with them. So, they don't have to resort to this.
Click to expand...

I know. But they'd be the only company I'd sign up for a lifetime sub.
 
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