Why is the WingX web site so horrible?

boxy and old-fashioned, and a bit boring, but not horrible.
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Respectfully, it's a horrible web site. The fact that it's using old-timey html isn't great, but that's not the real problem. The problem is that most of the information on the site hasn't been updated since 2008!

Probably because he's a application programmer, not a Web developer; and he'd rather work on his application programming than his Web site.
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I'm exactly that sort of application developer, so I know exactly what you mean. Heck, I even worked on some the early web browsers in the mid-90s, but any second grader can make a better web page than me. That's why I work on the application and another group works on web design.

What you're telling me is that WingX is the product of an individual, not of a team. That doesn't make me feel warm and fuzzy.
 
JimNtexas said:
Respectfully, it's a horrible web site. The fact that it's using old-timey html isn't great, but that's not the real problem. The problem is that most of the information on the site hasn't been updated since 2008!



I'm exactly that sort of application developer, so I know exactly what you mean. Heck, I even worked on some the early web browsers in the mid-90s, but any second grader can make a better web page than me. That's why I work on the application and another group works on web design.

What you're telling me is that WingX is the product of an individual, not of a team. That doesn't make me feel warm and fuzzy.
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Well, then I guess you should avoid it even though it gives you what nobody else does. You think you got burned on anywhere map, be glad you didn't get the Av8or Horizon, $5500 and never supported or worked.
 
JimNtexas said:
What you're telling me is that WingX is the product of an individual, not of a team. That doesn't make me feel warm and fuzzy.
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As a one-man show myself, I have to wonder why that would be a problem. My experience dealing with individuals versus teams can be summarized as:

1. Individuals are usually more responsive; and

2. The prices for software developed by individuals tend to be much lower.

The biggest down side is the question of what happens when the individual dies. I actually have some experience with this.

When my business partner Steve passed away, I took over the accounts that he serviced on his own (we each had our own accounts as well as the ones we shared) to maintain continuity for those clients, and eventually got to speed on the work he'd been doing for the partnership.

When my friend and colleague Stefan passed away, he was part of a group of us who were in the same business, and we split his accounts to maintain continuity for his clients. Although he died suddenly, we'd all worked out what would happen if any of us passed away. That took a lot of trust, by the way. We also covered for each other for vacations and so forth, and sometimes worked on major jobs together.

At the other extreme, when the sole developer of some auto repair shop software that many of my clients used passed away, he took the code with him to the grave, resulting in much annoyance and expense on the parts of his clients. It was especially bad because his software required the use of coded dongles, and went the dongles went bad, no one knew how to code new ones. That was a mess. I suspect that auto mechanics across the country still curse Charlie's memory.

In my own case, my brother (who's also a qualified Web developer, although he doesn't do it full-time at present) has all of the pertinent information for all of my clients, as well as passwords for my computers, servers, and so forth, and is an authorized representative for any business-related accounts I have. This would at least assure continuity for my clients in the event I prematurely screwed the pooch.

So again, assuming that I had any interest at all in computerizing my cockpit (which I don't), and I liked WingX, I think I would ask, in the most gentle manner I could muster up, if the developer had contingency plans to maintain the software in the event of his untimely demise.

Beyond that, I really don't understand why it matters whether one mind or a team of minds put the application together. I know that some people like "collaboration" and "teamwork" for their own sakes, which is fine, I guess. But as for myself, I either like the software or I don't.

-Rich
 
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Henning said:
Well, then I guess you should avoid it even though it gives you what nobody else does. You think you got burned on anywhere map, be glad you didn't get the Av8or Horizon, $5500 and never supported or worked.
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Hilton plays the same game as Control Vision did with AnywhereMap by competing on features rather than stability and accuracy. The difference, though, is that Hilton seems more serious about developing the product.

Aside from persistent bugs, missing IFR features, and some issues with accuracy, the big problem that I experienced with WingX was the lousy support. I never received a response to about half a dozen e-mails sent over a 2 month period. I could call on the phone, leave a voice mail, and sometimes receive a return phone call, but it was never from Hilton, and the person who called never seemed to know anything but the most basic troubleshooting. For some reason, the person was also never able to "find out" and get back to me with the answer, instead always instructing me to send e-mails, which went unanswered. The poor communication, combined with their lousy, out-of-date web site, isn't exactly inviting someone to invest in their product and associated ecosystem. And, yes, even though WingX supports multiple external hardware devices for ADS-B input, it's still essentially an isolated ecosystem since none of those external data sources work with ForeFlight or Garmin Pilot, WingX's strongest competitors.

ForeFlight has built a company around their product, and they provide very responsive support. However, like any company, they could be sold whenever the present owners decide to do so, and there's no telling what direction the product would take at that point. Also, their support still struggles with comprehension of some of the questions or bug reports that I send in, often replying with incomplete or irrelevant answers, but they usually get it right on the second try. They also typically respond to known bugs with timely fixes, and have continued to expand the feature set offered in the product.


JKG
 
I want to thank everyone who commented on this thread, I consider my question to have been answered.

Please let me emphasize that I have nothing against Dr. Goldberg or the WingX organization. We need more competition in general aviation, not less.
 
Hi all,

Firstly thanks to the pilots who alerted me to this thread. Obviously I cannot browse every thread of every aviation forum, so I really appreciate the heads up.

I'm going to try addresses all the questions and interesting speculation seen in this thread. Here goes:

2013 was our best year ever. We have been Apple's App Store #1 Top Grossing Navigation iPad App for almost three years (and still are). We won Aviation Consumer's Best iPad App of the Year Award for 2012 (awarded in July 2013). We continue to lead the industry in new technology. Among the top iPad apps, WingX Pro7 was the first to introduce ADS-B weather and traffic (we support about 10 ADS-B receivers to give you the choice - that number should go up quite a bit this year), Synthetic Vision, Split Screen, Terrain Profile View, Attitude Indicator, Passive RADAR Altimeter etc etc etc and we have some very cool new stuff planned for this year.

In terms of the company: HS has not been a 'one man show' for years. We just hired several people in the last month or so and moved into new offices. We recently won a very large contract from a very large entity (more on this at a later time).

We were using a third party for a lot of our data, now we do it all in-house - this allowed us to add WACs and deliver (in our opinion) more complete and accurate IAP geo-referencing. We also don't depend on third party companies to develop and maintain significant and important pieces of our product - this is not true for other products.

What else? Oh yes, neither I nor Tyson have any intention of dying anytime soon although my kids get a little crazy with me sometimes and think I'm Seabiscuit.

I didn't know the Superstition guys were running ForeFlight (iHenning's post). I did put together a video of what the pilots might have seen just after it happened - I speculated about the route, climb, etc, but I think it would be pretty close. This was before we added GPWS and Terrain Profile View to WingX Pro7 (we were the first in that too). Here's the video (lots of red). (I just watched it again, incredibly sad (I'm saying that as a parent of three small kids)): http://hiltonsoftware.com/ArizonaKids.mov (note: this version of WingX Pro7 collocated the *center* of the aircraft with the current position, newer versions use the nose of the aircraft symbol so in this video you'll see the aircraft 'hit' the mountain on the sectional before it actually does).

Jim says "Aviation history is littered with technically great but dead products which were killed by inept business management." Well, see comments above about our growth, achievements, Cessna use us to develop their mobile iPad app, we just secured a very big contract, etc. Could our management be better? Sure, that could be said of every company, but I think we're doing OK.

iHenning says: "...since every time I called with a question, the man himself picked up the phone." So you're the one calling at 3am? Seriously, I am not the one answering the phone most of the time, occasionally I do and in most cases the pilot asks for someone else instead. :)

The Garmin low-ends are not a good business model (any more).

Best comment of the forum goes to Jim: "The lemonade stand might have a hand-lettered sign and there might not be any shiny tables to sit down at, but the lemonade may still be delicious. You have to try it to find out, though."

The web site, agreed it ain't the prettiest, and yes we have links to YouTube, but why wouldn't we? This allows pilots to view the videos from their desktop, iPhone, and iPad, even from within WingX Pro7's Help page . We don't embed the videos in the web pages because there are so many (more on the way) - we keep it simple, click on the link and watch the video - no need to scroll through pages. We actually developed a spiffy new website and figured it was so much fluff and smoke and mirrors that it never went live. While I understand that a web site should be pretty, just remember WingX Pro7's data is 4GB, AOPA FlyQ's is 24GB, FF is several times larger (I don't recall the number) - so we put our efforts on things like reducing your download time and making WingX Pro7 great. Having said that, our web site needs a refresher - no argument from me.

The UI, while not the prettiest is designed to get you the data you need as fast as possible. For example, instead of dragging and dropping a point to delete it and have it blow up in a pretty yet spectacular fashion, we simply have you swipe left-to-right or right-to-left (depending on the version of iOS) and tap Delete - this is consistent with everything else you do on iOS - not flashy, but it is the standard way and much easier to use in turbulence, yet it has no cool wow factor while standing in a booth on the ground at Airventure (you can also tap on the moving map to delete a point). The UI is very easy to use actually if only pilots would approach it with an open mind. For example, for the Terrain Profile View, just tap the button. Want to change View 1 to a Sectional, tap View 1, then Sectional. It is designed to be easy to use without flashy stuff while you're bouncing around in the clouds. To add a piece of hardware, just connect it to your iPad and voila, WingX Pro7 finds it and you're off to the races - it does a lot in the background for you. You want to Search, just tap the Search button in the bottom-right (placed there deliberately for fast access). WingX Pro7 will immediately show the nearest airports with a Direct-To button (two taps to go Direct-To the nearest airport in an emergency) as well as other pertinent info such as whether the airport has an ILS approach etc. Even cooler, enter "Freznoe" and WingX Pro7 finds all airports in "Fresno" - how cool is that? At cruise altitude, WingX Pro7 will automagically show you your required rate of descent to the airport. Then when you line up with the runway, a message will appear showing you that you are lined up with that specific runway, its dimensions and your required ROD to the TDZ (it even differentiates between parallel runways). These two features alone will make your flying smoother and safer - your passengers won't even know that you're descending for the airport - I love it. Of course I could go on about why pilots are so passionate about WingX Pro7.

JGoodish - you want to contact me directly, email me at hilton@hiltonsoftware.com. If I don't get back to you in a day (or two), email me again - I really try to respond as much as I can.

I tried to answer and/or comment on as much as I could in this thread. Feel free to reply and ask questions, I will try keep up.

Have a great weekend,

Hilton
 
Hilton thanks for you comments. As I put in bold in one of my posts, if your website had current information the old style html wouldn't bother me.

It's the fact that most of the information there hasn't been updated since 2008! There's very little there about your current product!

It's interesting that you're post all these good things about WingX, and I'm very happy to hear that. The more competition the better! Its too bad they aren't mentioned on your web site.

My FF subscription is about to run out. I was going to try your 30 day option, but I just remember the sickening feeling I had when I realized that my $1700 gps/XM device from another vendor was essentially worthless, and the company seems to be either out of business or at least greatly reduced in their ability to support their product.

I just ordered a Stratus because unlike you, most of the information I had came from your web site. And it didn't inspire confidence.

So your web site has cost you one sale. I bet it's cost you more than just mine.

For the sake of all GA, I respectfully suggest that you task someone in your company to go through the web site and at least remove all the references to 2008 software.

Again, it's not the old style html, its the incredibly outdated information that is the problem!
 
Good to see you here Hilton... don't be a stranger !!!
 
Thank you for this thread. My foreflight expires in a week and though wing x costs more, a pilot I fly with a lot just loves it and wants me to switch.

The extended runway headings alone are enough to tempt me, plus foreflight brought up a taxiway diagram (blocking the map) automatically last weekend when I was in the pattern, but the airplane never showed up (in air). It only shows up when you taxi.

That and foreflight has been dying a lot on my iPad. Then again, I got it as a gift years ago, and even then it was a used iPad 1.

So I may need to just restore / reset it.
 
kimberlyanne546 said:
That and foreflight has been dying a lot on my iPad. Then again, I got it as a gift years ago, and even then it was a used iPad 1.

So I may need to just restore / reset it.
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WingX requires at least iOS 6[*] which I don't believe is available on the iPad 1.

[*] The description of WingX on the Apple app store also states iOS 5.1 or later. I guess the only way to know for sure is to try to install it using their 30 day trial period. If you have the space available you could try installing WingX now; no law says you have to wait for your FF sub to expire.
 
WingX is cheaper if you buy the 3 yr deal. And considering you get all the terrain features and more as part of the normal subscription, it's a much better deal.
 
I worked for Wing X during Oshkosh and can say they are well run. The company is ran by Hilton and he is the main developer. They listen to every comment and are always looking for ways to improve.
 
kimberlyanne546 said:
It sounds like my ipad is too old. I'll have to look into that.
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IMO, the iPad 1 is effectively dead. App crashes are frequent, the browser crashes continuously, and is unable to run any recent OS versions. I regret not getting my $200 gift card from Target when I had the chance.
 
FYI: I wrote up a long post responding to the comment about our website not having been updated since 2008 despite the entire website being about recent events including Version 7, Barons Services, Best iPad App of the Year Award for 2012, and the LSA Show in 2014! :) That post never appeared here. I hope this one does.

kimberlyanne546 said:
Thank you for this thread. My foreflight expires in a week and though wing x costs more, a pilot I fly with a lot just loves it and wants me to switch.
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Well, the 3-year deal drops the price to $66/yr, but for VFR pilots WingX Pro7 is a great deal because you get geo-referencing on airport diagrams, terrain, split-screen, obstacles, and yes even the pencil is free as part of the base subscription.

kimberlyanne546 said:
The extended runway headings alone are enough to tempt me, plus foreflight brought up a taxiway diagram (blocking the map) automatically last weekend when I was in the pattern, but the airplane never showed up (in air). It only shows up when you taxi.
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This is exactly why we don't remove your sectional when you land like some others do. If you are viewing an IAP, then we'll change it to the APD when you land and from the APD to DP on take-off. For VFR pilots, simply view the sectional and APD simultaneously in the split-screen and you're set. Some people don't like this perfectly good logic ;), but what you write above is exactly why we do it the way we do - for safety.

Hilton
 
Jim Logajan said:
WingX requires at least iOS 6[*] which I don't believe is available on the iPad 1.

[*] The description of WingX on the Apple app store also states iOS 5.1 or later. I guess the only way to know for sure is to try to install it using their 30 day trial period. If you have the space available you could try installing WingX now; no law says you have to wait for your FF sub to expire.
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If the App Store says 5.1 why would you state that WingX Pro7 requires iOS 6? We still have a lot of folks running WingX Pro7 on iPad 1 on iOS 5.1. We also have a lot of pilots running WingX Pro7 with everything loaded on 16GB iPads (and have another 10GB left over). Having said that, the performance and memory improvements in newer iPads are significant for various reasons plus they have more 'scratch pad' memory for us developers.

BTW: This 'single-person company just hired another person today. ;)

Hilton
 
hilton said:
If the App Store says 5.1 why would you state that WingX Pro7 requires iOS 6?
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I was merely restating some apparently conflicting App store information; you may want to review it because in the Apple App store Description section for WingX it notes:

"(30-day Free Period option - iOS 6 or later)."

While under the Information, Compatibility section it states:

"Requires iOS 5.1 or later."

As written it sounds like Kimberly could buy WingX for her iPad 1, but she could not take advantage of the 30 day trial period. I suppose that is plausible, but my first inclination was to treat those as possible errors in the App Store blurb.
 
Jim Logajan said:
I was merely restating some apparently conflicting App store information; you may want to review it because in the Apple App store Description section for WingX it notes:

"(30-day Free Period option - iOS 6 or later)."

While under the Information, Compatibility section it states:

"Requires iOS 5.1 or later."

As written it sounds like Kimberly could buy WingX for her iPad 1, but she could not take advantage of the 30 day trial period. I suppose that is plausible, but my first inclination was to treat those as possible errors in the App Store blurb.
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I've been using WingX for about a year now.....Love it.

My personal experience... Couldn't get the trial to work until I upgraded my iPad 2 from iOS 5.1 to iOS 6. In fact, that was why I upgraded. I'm slow to upgrade my iDevices (still haven't touched iOS 7)

YMMV

CORRECTION: Just checked.....my iPad was initially running iOS 5.0.1 NOT 5.1
I stand corrected.
 
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My .02....
Support? 100%... Even on a trip in Alabama, I had an issue & a fix, before I took off to my next leg!
App??? Tells us more than we need to know.... Do most of us use the app for all it has available? No... It fits my mission & flying to a tee.

Whether Hilton Software is 1 person, or 75 people, is not my concern...I do wish them success.
The company delivers on every point! I use a iPad Mini with ios 7.0... Never a crash! (the app or the plane...)
Hoping to see some new updates soon...? :lol:
Just my .02....worth:)
CaptGary
 
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Dr. Goldstein , enough pilots that I know and trust like WingX that I don't doubt the quality of your actual product.

It's just that putting grossly outdated information on your storefront makes your company look extremely unprofessional.

Good job on the web site update, but you still need to remove http://www.hiltonsoftware.com/Download.html. That is unless the last WingX manual was released in 2008, and unless you still support "the HP iPaq, Dell Axim, AT&T Tilt, Verizon 6800, Motorola Q and AT&T Blackjack II".

At the WingX booth at AOPA Summit I was told there was no support for Android. Yet there it is, offered up for sale for $99. Do you really want to sell that product?

In your posts in this thread you've told us about all the great things that you have achieved this year, and you have every right to be proud.

Why then, does the news at http://www.hiltonsoftware.com/InTheNews.html have 'news' only for the period from 2005 to 2010?

Dr Goldstein, I'm on your side. Please, please, get someone to clean up your website!!!

You and your company deserve much better!!!!!
 
Jim Logajan said:
I was merely restating some apparently conflicting App store information; you may want to review it because in the Apple App store Description section for WingX it notes:

"(30-day Free Period option - iOS 6 or later)."

While under the Information, Compatibility section it states:

"Requires iOS 5.1 or later."

As written it sounds like Kimberly could buy WingX for her iPad 1, but she could not take advantage of the 30 day trial period. I suppose that is plausible, but my first inclination was to treat those as possible errors in the App Store blurb.
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To everyone on this forum - very constructive, I sincerely appreciate the feedback, thanks to all.

Thanks for clarifying the iOS version conflict. Let me explain. WingX Pro7 is built for iOS 5.1. This will change in the (perhaps near) future as Apple push us to iOS 7 and beyond. So, the current version will run on iPad 1 with iOS 5.1. The iOS 6 reference regarding the demo is correct too. The previous way we enabled pilots to sign up for the demo was deprecated by Apple; i.e. what we were doing one day was OK but became not OK the next day (and lead to the app being rejected by Apple) - we needed to use API calls that were only available on iOS 6 to sign up for the demo - this had to do with privacy policies instituted by Apple. I didn't want to do this, it was more work for us and stopped the iPad 1 pilots from trying out the demo, but our hands were tied if we wanted to stay on the App Store.

Hope this helps, and thanks for pointing that out.

Hilton
 
kimberlyanne546 said:
Thank you for this thread. My foreflight expires in a week and though wing x costs more, a pilot I fly with a lot just loves it and wants me to switch.

The extended runway headings alone are enough to tempt me, plus foreflight brought up a taxiway diagram (blocking the map) automatically last weekend when I was in the pattern, but the airplane never showed up (in air). It only shows up when you taxi.

That and foreflight has been dying a lot on my iPad. Then again, I got it as a gift years ago, and even then it was a used iPad 1.

So I may need to just restore / reset it.
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Foreflight has extended runway centerlines and the auto APD can be turned off. So it won't switch by itself.
 
hilton said:
To everyone on this forum - very constructive, I sincerely appreciate the feedback, thanks to all.

Hilton
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Do you recommend using ios7 over ios6? Keep getting reminded to update and I am sure the bugs (if any) with io7 have been worked out.
 
Mike5250 said:
Do you recommend using ios7 over ios6? Keep getting reminded to update and I am sure the bugs (if any) with io7 have been worked out.
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I'm using WingX on IOS 7 and haven't seen any problems in a couple of months. I am not a heavy user, but I've had no glitches.

John
 
I haven't seen any problems with recent IOS7 releases. On the HiltonSoftware website they seem to indicate anything past 7.0.4 is stable. (current is 7.0.6)

I don't quite understand their statement "this will be our last IOS7 update". Especially since Hilton has said a new version is imminent. Maybe they meant "this will be our last comment about IOS7 compatibility issues"
 
CT4ME said:
I haven't seen any problems with recent IOS7 releases. On the HiltonSoftware website they seem to indicate anything past 7.0.4 is stable. (current is 7.0.6)

I don't quite understand their statement "this will be our last IOS7 update". Especially since Hilton has said a new version is imminent. Maybe they meant "this will be our last comment about IOS7 compatibility issues"
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Good catch. You are correct. When iOS 7 first came out it had issue, iOS7 did (not related to any EFB app and hence not "compatibility issues" - on the page we say "This has never been an issue with WingX Pro7 or any other EFB app.", but rather iOS 7 stability - check out our FaceBook page for examples). We tried to keep users informed about what we were finding with iOS 7. Then after a few iOS 7 iterations, Apple had fixed the issues and all was good (again, not related to any EFB app). So we decide we didn't need to provide those updates anymore and it was 'safe' to move to iOS 7. I have changed the wording to be less ambiguous. Thanks!

Hilton
 
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