ForeFlight 8

>> I hope they speed up plan.foreflight.com

Just curious how does it differentiate from AOPA's online flight planner ?
 
As noted Garmin Pilot has had vector maps for years but I prefer ForeFlight in combination with a Garmin panel. What would be more useful in ForeFlight would be layers indicating "Restaurants on Field" and "Mogas available" for the maps/charts. If I cared about vector maps I'd use Garmin Pilot.
 
I've tried FltPlan and just like ForeFlight way better.
 
Still one thing I would like to see is the ability to draw on the moving map.

We can draw on plates and taxi diagrams, so I'm hoping that eventually the maps will be included.
 
I got to play with FF8 at Oshkosh and I have to say I love the vector maps. The sectionals are still there if you prefer those but the vector maps are really nice. The more you zoom in the more detail they bring up (up to and including the airport runways and taxiways all labeled). or you can decluter by zooming out. Very nicely done and super sharp. Flying back from Oshkosh to Florida today made me wish for FF8. All that detail in the sectionals does me no good at 11,500 feet above an 8000 foot ceiling. And having to switch between track up and north up so I can read critical info gets old pretty quick. The vector maps provide the information I need more clearly and it's a great improvement. I can see myself using the vector maps mostly and switching to the sectionals occasionally when needed.
 
EminiTrader said:
I've tried FltPlan and just like ForeFlight way better.
Click to expand...


Diffrent tools, I just use fltplan for making and submitting my flight plans, calculates times and fuel burns way better, also pretty good and picking default altitudes and showing past ATC and user routing.

Foreflight for everything else
 
PaulMillner said:
Not quite accurate any more. Cheapest is to assemble a Stratux for ~$100

Paul
Click to expand...

Does it still work? I know FF keeps trying to lock it out. Do the Stratux developers keep offering updates to make it work?
 
Say you have a route and you grab it somewhere in the middle and drag it around in circles for a while. For about the first five seconds, everything seems fine and the rubber band refreshes smoothly. After about a five-count, however, the UI starts to get laggy, only a few frames per second. Anyone else seeing this?

ff8 on an ipad mini 2, ios 9.
 
Last edited:
GeorgeC said:
Say you have a route and you grab it somewhere in the middle and drag it around in circles for a while. For about the first five seconds, everything seems fine and the rubber band refreshes smoothly. After about a five-count, however, the UI starts to get laggy, only a few frames per second. Anyone else seeing this?

ff8 on an ipad mini 2, ios 9.
Click to expand...
yes. I find the new version to be very laggy.
 
GeorgeC said:
Say you have a route and you grab it somewhere in the middle and drag it around. For about the first five seconds, everything seems fine and the UI refreshes smoothly. After about a five-count, however, the UI starts to get laggy, only a few frames per second. Anyone else seeing this?

ff8 on an ipad mini 2, ios 9.
Click to expand...

I can't say that I know exactly what triggers it, but on my mini there's significant slowdowns these days. I'll see if your scenario always slows down on mine. The slowdowns act like mini freezes while the processor catches up.

I also keep my original iPad 3 on my FF account just as a reminder of how much bloat has happened since I started with Foreflight and iOS. It's completely unusable. I fiddle with it at my desk at work where it lives in a desktop stand and get used occasionally for slack and email with a keyboard when I need to type up something on it while doing a lot of reboots on the regular desktop and laptop systems. It's almost too slow for that.

So much for carrying a backup iPad as offered in FF licensing. The iPhone is the only usable backup now. You'd need to buy a new iPad about every two years to keep up on that game.

My original foray into Foreflight as an EFB was on an iPad 1, BTW.

Whether the problems lie in iOS and development libraries, or in Foreflight not being very optimized (built for today's hardware, screw old hardware -- for both iOS and their code), or just massive amounts of new features that make it way to busy to use on older devices... the planned obsolescence really shows after you hang on to your hardware for a while to get a good ROI out of it.

I can hang on to Apple desktop hardware about twice as long as I can limp iOS devices along as they get slower and slower and slower through OS and App bloat.

That means about $800/$1000 every two years must be factored into FF as a "cost" to divide by, if you want the best performance that doesn't show noticeable lag in at least some portion of the App.

I've been holding out for the next iPad for FF for these reasons:

A) Next iPad will be purchased for the CFI business and only ever used for that. Taxes. Separation of business from non-business. Etc.

B) I keep eyeballing alternatives to the Apple ecosystem. I love FF but I'm really disliking where Apple is headed under Cook. The next smartphone is probably Android, and probably a Samsung Galaxy series*. I see no significant reason to pay the Apple tax for the iPhone 7.

C) That'll mean the only iOS device in the house will be the iPad "attached" to the flight training biz. And that leads to investigating WingX or Garmin or at least using both or all of the above on different platforms.

* Note on the Galaxy stuff. While researching I've noticed that our car stereos of course have "Made for iPhone" certifications and the Samsung Galaxy Note phones have problems with Kenwood decks and playback over USB/hardwire. And I won't put up with the sound quality downgrade to do it all over Bluetooth**, so the standard Galaxy phones at least for the moment, seem to work better for folks in audio forums. Android has a bad Achilles heel in direct audio playback. Every vehicle has an Apple cable in it attached to something in the stereo and in one vehicle I've been doing that since the hard drive iPod days including interfacing to the steering wheel controls with an $80 device that sits between the unused XM receiver and the built in Bose system, and displays track and playlist data and interfaces to the vehicle controls. Android hasn't even come close to catching up to the iPod interface included in all of the iOS devices. "Android Audio" appears to be very hit or miss and Kenwood makes it worse with needing their own custom app for older stereo heads.

** Yeah I'm one of the people ****ed about the headphone jack. Bluetooth quality is crap and I have many studio quality headphones and plug real headphones into iPhone 6+ nearly every evening.
 
Still reproducible on 10 as well. I'll grab a video of it...
 
GeorgeC said:
Say you have a route and you grab it somewhere in the middle and drag it around in circles for a while. For about the first five seconds, everything seems fine and the rubber band refreshes smoothly. After about a five-count, however, the UI starts to get laggy, only a few frames per second. Anyone else seeing this?

ff8 on an ipad mini 2, ios 9.
Click to expand...

IPad Air running 10, Foreflight 8, no issues.
 
GeorgeC said:
Say you have a route and you grab it somewhere in the middle and drag it around in circles for a while. For about the first five seconds, everything seems fine and the rubber band refreshes smoothly. After about a five-count, however, the UI starts to get laggy, only a few frames per second. Anyone else seeing this?

ff8 on an ipad mini 2, ios 9.
Click to expand...

Still does it on a mini 4 w/ ios10.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top