SkyCharts - iPhone app

[glider]

Shameless plug, but seems like no one here has found SkyCharts yet ?

In any case, for $9.99 at AppStore I believe its a great aviation app with current sectionals, A/FD and TPP for the entire continental USA.
http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewSoftware?id=300623342&mt=8

And all charts are cached once viewed - no connectivity is required after that.

Works in portrait and landscape.
Smart picker for airports and one tap dialing to ASOS/AWOS.

Attaching some screen shots. Enjoy.
Pireps are requested.

More info can be found here:
http://www.skycharts.net

 

[jason]

Do the charts always stay current?

 

[glider]

Do the charts always stay current?

Yes, charts/AFD/TPP's are updated every 28 days. The app will notify you when charts have expired and when new charts are available for download.

 

[jesse]

Can it cache regions? For example, I might want it to have Terminal charts for Nebraska, Missouri, and Arkansas.

It'd be nice if I could pick a few states before flight so that they would be downloaded on the phone in advance.

Also, any plans for a low-enroute with a search feature? Type in an identifier and it pulls up that chart and marks it? (I know this takes some work to implement)

 

[glider]

Can it cache regions? For example, I might want it to have Terminal charts for Nebraska, Missouri, and Arkansas.

It'd be nice if I could pick a few states before flight so that they would be downloaded on the phone in advance.

Also, any plans for a low-enroute with a search feature? Type in an identifier and it pulls up that chart and marks it? (I know this takes some work to implement)

You cache charts by the name of the sectional chart.
So in your case select the Omaha and Kansas City charts.

However, TAC charts are currently not supported (only the sectionals are supported), but seamless zoom into TAC charts is on the to-do list.

 

[glider]

Btw, forgot - SkyCharts can be 'driven' from X-Plane as well, perfect as a X-Plane companion to check your current position and A/FD and TPP.

 

[flyingcheesehead]

You cache charts by the name of the sectional chart.
So in your case select the Omaha and Kansas City charts.

However, TAC charts are currently not supported (only the sectionals are supported), but seamless zoom into TAC charts is on the to-do list.

Heikki, 'zat you?

I have SkyCharts (thank you!) and it's cool - But sloooooow. This may just be due to the limitations of the device, but with the number of crashes I kinda wonder if there's enough [object release];ing going on in ApplicationDidReceiveMemoryWarning!

Can it cache regions? For example, I might want it to have Terminal charts for Nebraska, Missouri, and Arkansas.

It'd be nice if I could pick a few states before flight so that they would be downloaded on the phone in advance.

I didn't notice that feature before, but sho'nuff - Just tap the little info (i) button in the lower right and you can choose which sectionals to cache.

Updates can only be done over WiFi, but that kinda makes sense considering the size of the files.

Also, any plans for a low-enroute with a search feature? Type in an identifier and it pulls up that chart and marks it? (I know this takes some work to implement)

You can already search for airports, navaids, and fixes and it'll pull up the chart right there. Just tap the -D> key.

Low enroutes would be cool, though... But considering this app costs about as much as 1.25 sectionals it's a pretty good deal!

 

[flyingcheesehead]

I didn't notice that feature before, but sho'nuff - Just tap the little info (i) button in the lower right and you can choose which sectionals to cache.

Okay, I can't get this to work.

After several tries (which involved turning the caching off/on for a chart to force it to try again), I finally got it to cache the Chicago sectional. Then, I went into Settings and turned on Airplane Mode, and moved off to the side until there was gray on the screen (still WELL inside the boundaries of the Chicago sectional) and it repeatedly gives me the error "Internet Error: No connection to server."

What am I doing wrong?

 

[glider]

Also, any plans for a low-enroute with a search feature? Type in an identifier and it pulls up that chart and marks it? (I know this takes some work to implement)

Forgot to answer this.
IFR low enroute charts will eventually be added - currently they are not supported.

However, the fixes are already in the database.
Just position the first slot in the FIX position, then enter the 5 nav id and tap on 'Map' and the map will be centered on it. Since its VFR chart the fix may or may not be marked though.
(APT=Airport,NAV=VOR/NDB )

 

[glider]

Okay, I can't get this to work.

After several tries (which involved turning the caching off/on for a chart to force it to try again), I finally got it to cache the Chicago sectional. Then, I went into Settings and turned on Airplane Mode, and moved off to the side until there was gray on the screen (still WELL inside the boundaries of the Chicago sectional) and it repeatedly gives me the error "Internet Error: No connection to server."

What am I doing wrong?

If there is gray then its not cached....
Did it say it was caching ?

Just in case something weird happened, delete the App, install it again (you will not be charged again, iTunes knows what you have purchased), then cache Chicago. It will take about 4 minutes in wifi to download the entire sectional.
Then exit app, turn ON airplane mode and use for instance D-> to center map on ORD and voila.

The download message looks like this:

 

[glider]

I have SkyCharts (thank you!) and it's cool - But sloooooow. This may just be due to the limitations of the device, but with the number of crashes I kinda wonder if there's enough [object release];ing going on in ApplicationDidReceiveMemoryWarning!

Low enroutes would be cool, though... But considering this app costs about as much as 1.25 sectionals it's a pretty good deal!

Hi Kent

Memory leaks: 99% of all apps on the iPhone leaks, however SkyCharts is not one of those!
What does happen though is that the OS freaks when the app loads the 9Mb database and throws the AppDidReceiveMemoryWarning, but again SkyCharts does not leak, I have run it for hours in the memory leak detector. Believe it or not but its any other app you run that eat up the memory and never release it - and eventually the last app to run will get blamed. Sadly the only fix is to reboot your phone once a day or so. Sigh..

Slow - it shouldn't be - but if you haven't cached the charts then that will explain it ?
Especially Edge.. If you do view the same charts (or cache) it will load all bitmaps from disk instead of having to retrieve them over the (cell)network - a lot faster.
Let me know how it works out after successfully caching the data ?

 

[flyingcheesehead]

If there is gray then its not cached....
Did it say it was caching ?

Gray, where? All of the sectional names were in black... Or should it be gray somewhere else?

Just in case something weird happened, delete the App, install it again (you will not be charged again, iTunes knows what you have purchased), then cache Chicago. It will take about 4 minutes in wifi to download the entire sectional.
Then exit app, turn ON airplane mode and use for instance D-> to center map on ORD and voila.

Okay. Deleted, reinstalled, nuked cache files (it relocated me to KUAO), tapped (i), chose Chicago, got the dialog for "updating charts and procedures," hit OK, waited for the progress bar to fill completely and disappear, (no crashes at all so far), went to the Settings app, turned on airplane mode, opened SkyCharts back up...

OK, working now! Not blazing fast, but much faster than EDGE for sure. (I'm sure the new, supposedly faster iPhone will help speed big-time, because this has to be taxing the hell out of it!) And, interestingly enough, it appears to have cached not only Chicago, but about a screenful of data outside the borders of the Chicago sectional! Cool!

Now if only I could enter a flight plan and have it draw me a course line...

BTW, what's the difference between the blue and red location circles?

What does happen though is that the OS freaks when the app loads the 9Mb database and throws the AppDidReceiveMemoryWarning, but again SkyCharts does not leak, I have run it for hours in the memory leak detector.

Now that I've played with the cached chart a bit, I can see how you're releasing chunks of chart "behind" where I'm looking. Nice.

Believe it or not but its any other app you run that eat up the memory and never release it - and eventually the last app to run will get blamed. Sadly the only fix is to reboot your phone once a day or so. Sigh..

Hmmm. Maybe we'll get garbage collection in iPhone OS 4.0, huh?

Thanks for the help! Now I'm going to go cache the Kansas City sectional too so I can try this out a little better on the way to Gaston's.

 

[jesse]

Hi Kent

Memory leaks: 99% of all apps on the iPhone leaks, however SkyCharts is not one of those!
What does happen though is that the OS freaks when the app loads the 9Mb database and throws the AppDidReceiveMemoryWarning, but again SkyCharts does not leak, I have run it for hours in the memory leak detector. Believe it or not but its any other app you run that eat up the memory and never release it - and eventually the last app to run will get blamed. Sadly the only fix is to reboot your phone once a day or so. Sigh..

Slow - it shouldn't be - but if you haven't cached the charts then that will explain it ?
Especially Edge.. If you do view the same charts (or cache) it will load all bitmaps from disk instead of having to retrieve them over the (cell)network - a lot faster.
Let me know how it works out after successfully caching the data ?

I'm not that familiar with the iPhone architecture -- but you're saying that an app from the app store can acquire memory and even after the app is terminated that memory is not released? That really doesn't sound right...screams of a serious issue. I could see of a leak while it is running but doesn't the kernel release the memory when that particular process is terminated?

Could you please fill me in on how an app would take memory and then still hold that memory after it is terminated?

 

[glider]

Gray, where? All of the sectional names were in black... Or should it be gray somewhere else?

Now if only I could enter a flight plan and have it draw me a course line...

BTW, what's the difference between the blue and red location circles?


Hmmm. Maybe we'll get garbage collection in iPhone OS 4.0, huh?

Thanks for the help! Now I'm going to go cache the Kansas City sectional too so I can try this out a little better on the way to Gaston's.

Excellent!
With gray I meant if you only see a gray when in airplane mode then there is no data cached to be displayed.

Blue/Magenta/Red: Its the age of the gps fix. Normally it should stay blue, but if you are inside (and away from windows) it may change to red since you have not received a gps fix in the last 60 seconds. If you are using an iTouch then it will also stay red since the device doesn't have a gps - the device is using a wifi->location lookup to get your location.
(and of course it will most likely not work at all once airborne).

Garbage collection: Yes, would be needed indeed!

Route/Navigation: Its coming, but since more people have been requesting more charts that's what I have been working on.

Crash: It really should not crash at all once you have managed to launch it, however there seems to be an OS problem when when the phone is deciding on if it will use edge/3g/wifi to send/receieve data. My only 3.0 device is an iTouch though so of course it never has any problems at all, but it would be great if this has been fixed in 3.0 as well. Maybe 3.0 will be released today at the WWDC ?

 

[glider]

I'm not that familiar with the iPhone architecture -- but you're saying that an app from the app store can acquire memory and even after the app is terminated that memory is not released? That really doesn't sound right...screams of a serious issue. I could see of a leak while it is running but doesn't the kernel release the memory when that particular process is terminated?

Could you please fill me in on how an app would take memory and then still hold that memory after it is terminated?

Yes, thats exactly what seems to be happening, even after terminating an app all memory may not be returned, so one misbehaving app (and if you keep running it), will eventually take down the entire phone.

I haven't used 3.0 enough to see if that's still the case but for 2.2.1 if you have any type of problems running apps, just reboot the phone..

 

[mantakos]

I'm not that familiar with the iPhone architecture -- but you're saying that an app from the app store can acquire memory and even after the app is terminated that memory is not released?

App store apps don't run in the background, there's only one running at a time. When the user hits "the button", the app exits, its process terminates, and any memory allocated is freed. So there shouldn't be any potential for one App Store app to allocate memory that interferes with the ability of another App Store app to run, because the prior app is necessarily terminated before the second App Store app runs.

But the "catch" here, and the reason I keep saying "App Store app", is because the same rules aren't enforced on some of the "system" apps. In particular, it appears that Safari and the mail app remain resident in memory even after you exit them, and they can hold on to their memory. Presumably this is done to allow for quicker re-launching of those apps.

So I'm _guessing_ that all this "reboot before starting our app" stuff is because of these system apps that remain resident in memory.
-harry

 

[jesse]

App store apps don't run in the background, there's only one running at a time. When the user hits "the button", the app exits, its process terminates, and any memory allocated is freed. So there shouldn't be any potential for one App Store app to allocate memory that interferes with the ability of another App Store app to run, because the prior app is necessarily terminated before the second App Store app runs.

But the "catch" here, and the reason I keep saying "App Store app", is because the same rules aren't enforced on some of the "system" apps. In particular, it appears that Safari and the mail app remain resident in memory even after you exit them, and they can hold on to their memory. Presumably this is done to allow for quicker re-launching of those apps.

So I'm _guessing_ that all this "reboot before starting our app" stuff is because of these system apps that remain resident in memory.
-harry

This is what I was trying to get at Harry, I didn't understand how one could blame memory problem's on someone elses app that wasn't even running.

The only thing I could think of is that some of the API call's may utilize other processes running on the system which might leak (the actual core apple processes) and if the memory was acquired by the system processes on the API's behalf then it wouldn't free when the app exited.

 

[flyingcheesehead]

Blue/Magenta/Red: Its the age of the gps fix. Normally it should stay blue, but if you are inside (and away from windows) it may change to red since you have not received a gps fix in the last 60 seconds. If you are using an iTouch then it will also stay red since the device doesn't have a gps - the device is using a wifi->location lookup to get your location.
(and of course it will most likely not work at all once airborne).

Aha. I have the original iPhone (no GPS, but can do cell tower triangulation in addition to the WiFi lookup) and it does show blue when I first pick up the location, and then becomes red after a short time. Cool!

Maybe 3.0 will be released today at the WWDC ?

To us paid developers, yes (though I haven't picked it up yet). The rest of the world gets it on the 17th, I think.

 

[glider]

FYI - SkyCharts 1.4.3.3 just got released.
Mainly fixes for OS3.0
It now also has a 'super zoom' on the last zoom level, useful to really see all chart details.

Enjoy

 

[bullwinkle]

Downloaded this app based on this thread...it's pretty neat. No replacement for the paper version, but nice to be able to quickly scout out areas of a sectional when on the ground.

 

[njord4]

So I'm _guessing_ that all this "reboot before starting our app" stuff is because of these system apps that remain resident in memory.
-harry

The other option is to jailbreak your phone and then download the app "Free Memory" that allows you to free unused memory in about 2 seconds. :smile:

 

[flyingcheesehead]

The other option is to jailbreak your phone and then download the app "Free Memory" that allows you to free unused memory in about 2 seconds. :smile:

I wouldn't recommend it.

I once jailbroke my iPhone so I could tether my laptop through it. It worked OK, or so I thought - But after a couple weeks the tethering setup quit working and I couldn't revive it, so I decided to restore the phone to the fully Apple-blessed setup. I couldn't believe how much better it worked! Faster, and MUCH more stable. I hadn't really noticed how unstable it was when jailbroken until I went back to "in jail" mode.

 

[jason]

I wouldn't recommend it.

I once jailbroke my iPhone so I could tether my laptop through it. It worked OK, or so I thought - But after a couple weeks the tethering setup quit working and I couldn't revive it, so I decided to restore the phone to the fully Apple-blessed setup. I couldn't believe how much better it worked! Faster, and MUCH more stable. I hadn't really noticed how unstable it was when jailbroken until I went back to "in jail" mode.

Jesse now has his tethered. Took about 3 minutes. I might do mine tonight.

 

[jesse]

Jesse now has his tethered. Took about 3 minutes. I might do mine tonight.

Correct. You no longer need to jail break.

 

[flyingcheesehead]

Correct. You no longer need to jail break.

What's the link to that again? I saw that someone had posted a procedure but after reading a bit I thought "maybe later" and promptly lost it.

 

[glider]

FYI: 1.4.3.5 of SkyCharts just got pushed out to AppStore.

ALL IFR plates for every sectional can now be downloaded!
(it takes time - be patient)
Enable the 'Cache IFR plates' in the system settings to enable.

You can also try the new BreadCrumbs feature - allows your friends to track your whereabouts.

Again - SkyCharts CACHES everything you do, so it will work even without connectivity. Bulk download entire sectionals using the 'i' button.

Enjoy

 

[flyingcheesehead]

Hate to say it, but the new ForeFlight Charts app kicks the living crap out of SkyCharts. It lacks the plates/diagrams, but it launches fast, redraws fast, has pinch-to-zoom, and will draw a line on-screen for a flight plan and give you no-wind flight planning info. Price is the same between the two. Haven't tried ForeFlight Charts' caching - It doesn't let you cache an entire sectional at a time like SkyCharts, but it does cache what you've looked at. Slightly different capabilities, but once again ForeFlight has demonstrated that they really know what they're doing on the iPhone.

 

[glider]

Thanks for your input.

Try taking Foreflight Charts out of connectivity and you might feel slightly different ?
It doesn't cache anything. Period.

 

[flyingcheesehead]

Thanks for your input.

Try taking Foreflight Charts out of connectivity and you might feel slightly different ?
It doesn't cache anything. Period.

I haven't tried it myself, but I spoke with the developer at OSH and he said it caches everything you view.

Seriously, if you could make SkyCharts as fast as ForeFlight Charts, and use pinch zoom, and draw lines... It'd be darn near perfect! The speed is a major issue.

 

[glider]

Btw, its easy to simulate how an app behaves in no connectivity by running it in Airplane mode ON.

Also - I'm not done developing SkyCharts - expect some significant changes in the relatively short future.

 

[flyingcheesehead]

Btw, its easy to simulate how an app behaves in no connectivity by running it in Airplane mode ON.

Hmmm. And it appears that ForeFlight charts is useless without an Internet connection...

Also - I'm not done developing SkyCharts - expect some significant changes in the relatively short future.

Glad to hear it!

 

[glider]

You should also try the new breadcrumb feature if you haven't - it lets your S.O. know where you are at any time (assuming you have it enabled of course).

For X-Plane pilots SkyCharts also just tracks along the simulator if you have configured X-Plane correctly, no need to keep scrolling the chart, just tap on the lock and it will always stay centered on your current position.

Again, all the charts+plates can be cached, so once you have loaded your phone you don't need any connectivity.

More info here:
http://www.skycharts.net/?page_id=365
http://www.skycharts.net/?page_id=228

 

[gprellwitz]

You should also try the new breadcrumb feature if you haven't - it lets your S.O. know where you are at any time (assuming you have it enabled of course).

I'm glad you consider this a Good Thing. So do I, within reason. Right honey?