iPad people have Foreflight, what about us Android users?
- Thread starter SquatThrust
- Start date
wheelsup
Well-Known Member
In 2 years the Android will be smoked, worn out, slow, etc. In 2 years the Apple will be operating like it was the day you got it. I've been there. They cost more because they are a quality product, not to mention they have resale value.
This would be neat to get as well eventually (if I win the lottery)
http://www.sportys.com/PilotShop/product/17165
This is coming from someone with a Droid X2 and a new-ish Acer Netbook. The iPad 2 is (I think) the oldest of the three but runs programs the smoothest. I see people struggle with Android tablets all the time and I just turn mine on and go. It's refreshing.
jgheggie
Well-Known Member
Bingo!
SquatThrust
Well-Known Member
I have a brand new Nexus 7. I don't have it loaded with much at all and don't intend to load it up with a bunch of performance robbing garbage apps. I'll say that with the latest crop of Android products being far better than their earlier relatives that we will just have to wait your two years to see if your opinion has any validity. Till then.
CoffeeIcePapers
Well-Hung Member
My first Gen ipad ran like crap after two years of ios updates.
elmetal
Ain't nobody got time for that
Yep. Every update makes them slower. Planned obsolecence
Ozelot
Frozen Tundra TRACON
I run "stock" android....."stock" android is far superior to that bloatware crap shell that samsung/HTC loads on their phones. I see why most Apple people think iOS is gods gift to mobile computing, almost nobody uses "stock" android. It works great for me an my everyday life.
My Android devices have never "slowed down", but that is because I pay attention to things such as the reputation of the app developer. Apps from good developers will make someone's android experience much smoother. Apple products are fine and dandy, but I don't really like using an OS that looks like a a kindergartner spilled a pastel bucket of paint all over it. I also like more control over my device. I just get tired of hearing Apple fan boys bad mouthing Android for no reason, they are usually the ones who aren't really savvy computer type people. Hipsters...<shudder>
My Android devices have never "slowed down", but that is because I pay attention to things such as the reputation of the app developer. Apps from good developers will make someone's android experience much smoother. Apple products are fine and dandy, but I don't really like using an OS that looks like a a kindergartner spilled a pastel bucket of paint all over it. I also like more control over my device. I just get tired of hearing Apple fan boys bad mouthing Android for no reason, they are usually the ones who aren't really savvy computer type people. Hipsters...<shudder>
I had my Droid X2 until a month ago when I finally decided to replace it because my payments went WAY down for getting another phone. Now I have a Droid Raze MAXX, and I gotta say, it's pretty freakin awesome.
KatanaHawk
Well-Known Member
Or to avoid this whole debate you could pull a "Delta" and go with a Surface 
wheelsup
Well-Known Member
I'm using my Verizon Droid X2 on Verizon towers paying $46/month including tax for unlimited talk, text, and 2.5 gb of data. It's only 3G, but that's fine for the price I pay with the Verizon network!
Verizon has a plan now that is $60+tax (roughly $68-$72 after) for unlimited talk, text, and 2 gb high speed LTE data with a phone subsidy. It's a great option for those who want to get a newer phone and stay with Verizon post paid. Sounds like you switched to that plan?
If you factor in the phone subsidy you're talking around $60/month which is a great deal IMO.
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MidlifeFlyer
Well-Known Member
A little late to the dance but this post caught my attention because the one and only reason I bought an iPad was ForeFlight. I'm on my second iPad and still every happy with my "It's the apps, Stupid!" decision, rather than joining the nonsensical Apple-Android religious war (I've been using an Android phone since the original DROID ).lol. Its going to take more than the quality of Foreflight to get me to ever buy an ipad.
That said, after a lot of thought, my backup to the iPad/ForeFlight combo is an ASUS MeMO Pad HD 7" Android tablet. Considered and rejected was an iPod Touch (too small) and actually switching to an iPhone (not likely in this lifetime). Finally decided that a mini tablet made sense and that, for a backup, different operating system and different apps made more sense.
Still on the fence about which app, but here is where I seem to be heading.
I already rejected Garmin Pilot although it was an obvious choice since it is one of the few that run on both platforms. But it is not a bad app (although there have been some recently reported issue on the Android platform). My rejection was mostly because I liked ForeFlight better and made the hardware commitment to a Stratus.
If the Android was to be my primary EFB app, I'd probably go with Avilution. I've played with it on my phone and flew with the demo version this past weekend. Well done and well thought out.
I will likely use Avare as my backup. I also flew with Avare this past weekend (switched between Avare and Avilution on different legs). For a free app it is incredibly robust and it's developer is seriously involved in making it better. At this point it may be a little weak for a primary EFB if for no reason other than the flight planning is a bit clunky, including no efficient way of inserting a waypoint in an existing flight plan (there is a way but it's a lot of button and keyboard pressing; this, along with adding geo-referenced approach plates, is a current development priority).
BTW, the ASUS 7" tablet performed flawlessly in its test run, although it did confirm my overall preference for a full-size tablet rather than a mini.
gne in prog
Well-Known Member
iPad people have Foreflight, what about us Android users?
You get widgets.
You get widgets.
SquatThrust
Well-Known Member
So, I've spent the last couple days playing with the free trial versions of Garmin Pilot and Avilution Aviation Maps and thought I would share a few thoughts/comparisons for those that are also trying to find the best nav app for Android. I tend to get wordy, but I'll try to keep this post from becoming a novel while still covering what is relevant. I know there are some free apps out there that are somewhat decent, however, I value the more mature and easier to use interfaces of the better rated pay-apps. So, if you prefer free (and who doesn't?), but don't mind having a little bit inferior of an app, hey, more power to ya, go for it. For me, I'm willing to pay for the better usability over the free apps.
For comparisons sake, with each app, I did some regular VFR navigation and flew a GPS and ILS approach, and then explored the flight planning and wx/briefing tools while on the ground. Also, I have only about 2 days of use with each of these apps, so it is entirely possible, maybe even likely, that a capability that I think doesn't exist or deficient may actually be possible and I just haven't discovered it yet, though I have read fairly well through the manuals of both apps and hope that this isn't too much the case.
If you are a tl;dr type: Go with Avilution Aviation Maps. If you want to know how I came to that conclusion, read on.
I'll have a lot to say with regards to the UI, as in my opinion, the quality of an app for this purpose is greatly affected by how easily you can access, display, and use the features that the app can offer. They all offer moving maps, with overlays of wx, traffic, etc. They all offer geo-referenced approach plates and airport diagrams. So, how easy are they to use?
User Interface:
The overall appearance of the UI and responsiveness in use of Garmin Pilot (GP) is a little bit cleaner and faster than Avilution AvMaps (AAM). GP simply looks more professionally designed (but not by much), as it probably is, considering the overall aviation navigation experience of the corporate parent involved in its design. 'Buttons' are easy to read on both apps, however, on my Nexus 7 (2013), GP seems to be slightly more responsive to touch inputs when touching an airport or waypoint on the map. AAM sometimes lags little bit in comparison, sometimes even requiring touching the map again to get the info box to open. GP also seems to handle the high-res screen of the Nexus 7 better than AAM as well, though AAM is still quite good overall. For exmaple, when at tight zoom levels on GP, the sharpness is held just little better than the rendering achieved through AAM. I also prefer GP's method of displaying waypoint information when you touch it on the map, with its radial button array allowing quick access to the variety of things you might be looking for. AAM works pretty well with what it shows when touching a point on the map, but I feel that it is a little bit behind in it's UI design in that the box that pops up has fewer 'buttons' but still manages to cram more words for you to read while assessing what it is that you want to choose from. It's not hard to use what pops up in AAM, I just personally prefer the appearance and layout in GP. Another benefit of GP over AAM is that GP also lets you tap on more waypoints/navaids to open an information box about said item. See a VOR you want to direct-to? Just touch and hit Direct-To on the box that pops up. AAM will sort've do this. If there is a VOR collocated with an airport, and you want just the VOR, you'll never get it. Only the airport info box will pop up, which sure, you could eventually get to the navaid info, but it involved more steps than on GP in this method.
Despite all that praise for GP, there are a similar amount of things that I dislike about it compared to AAM, and unfortunately for GP, are big enough issues that lead me to prefer AAM. For example, GP does not have an HSI overlay on your map position! In order to see an HSI in GP, you have to open the split-screen function and show an HSI in the other half of the screen, along with some other silly digital 'steam gauges' that also don't readily display on the map. AAM shows an HSI overlay on your position on the map; that is an instant plus for me, and quite honestly, a pretty big deal. That seems to be quite a big oversight on Garmin's part to not include such an item. Next in AAM's favor, you get your GS, Heading, ALT and VS placed directly above your aircraft icon on the map, but not in a manner that is obtrusive or unsightly. I could do without the ALT and VS simply because it isn't a reliable piece of information from a tablet GPS system. In contrast, GP displays all of your flight data (GS, Heading, ETE, ETD, Next WYPNT, etc etc) in a row on the top of the screen, but there are so many items listed in the row that you have to swipe on the row left and ride to see everything! Granted, you can open up the split-screen function and again show these things there, but they don't go away on the map screen when in this mode, so it just eats up map space and is a pain to use. I dislike this all of this.
Both apps allow you to receive a briefing and file through your DUAT(S) account and have all of the text based WX information you want for your route of flight, however so far as I can tell, only AAM also downloads WX maps and charts (radar pictures, freeze levels, etc). I like this. They're about equal in terms of how quickly and unobtrusively you can access this information, which is to say that I can have text WX data/radar pictures on one side of the split-screen while still seeing my map position on the other side with either app. Both allow overlays on the map of all the radar/TFRs/satellite, etc, and they're both easy to make that happen.
I prefer slightly GPs method of accessing approach plates and procedures over AAMs. In GP, you can create 'binders' loaded with just the plates/procedures you want and then name the binder whatever you want to call it, or you can create a binder that contains all procedures and documents for specific airports (say, your departure and arrival airports). You can view and open your binders in the split screen while still monitoring the moving map. I like this better than AAMs process, where you can still see the list of procedures for an airport in the split screen, however AAM does not have a 'binder' capability (that I can tell), and instead it will just show a list from a drop-down button your 8 most recently accessed procedures. Not bad, but I don't prefer it.
A big gripe that I have with both apps is that the 'nearest' function only allows you to search for nearest airports. Want to see what the nearest navaids, intersections, or waypoints to you are because you just received an amended clearance in flight and you just need a specific navaid for example? You can't do that. This I just don't understand. My 12 year old garmin 430 can do this. Why can't these new-fangled apps do it? I'm going to be looking at nearest navaids, intersections, waypoints, etc more often than I am nearest airports, especially considering that I have a moving map that can show me where I am in relation to the airports visually!
Creating and altering a flight plan is pretty simple in both apps, so I won't go into the technical aspect of it much. You can insert departures/arrivals into your flight plan, use victor airways and they will include all of the appropriate waypoints/navaids along your route. This is nice. However I'll still have to give the nod to AAM. Building your flight plan is a little bit more intuitive and much much easier to see your nav log than on GP. Which brings me to another problem I have with GP: the nav log for your flight plan is so far as I can tell not visible while in split-screen mode or even while the map is being displayed (AAM allows this), and in order to see your nav log in GP you have to dive a few menus into the Flight Planning pages to see it. I want to be able to quickly see my nav log information and still see the map, and AAM has this covered pretty well. In fact, I was nearly convinced that GP didn't even provide a nav log, which would have been a huge faux pas, as it was so hard for me to find, as I was expecting it to be short and simple from the map screen to access it.
Battery Life: Slight Edge to AAM (maybe).
Using my 2013 Google Nexus 7 set to full brightness, I was getting a battery discharge rate of about 20% per hour of use with GP. That is in my opinion, quite acceptable. I would then expect to get at least a solid 4 hours of use on one battery charge before getting concerned about it.
With AAM, so far I seem to be getting about an 18% battery discharge rate per hour with my screen at full brightness. However, it is entirely possible that the variation between the two is not directly related to the performance of the apps and more about the specific conditions of the tablet in that moment. Regardless, about 20% discharge per hour seems reasonable on my device with either app, and I consider that to be pretty good. This isn't an issue if you can connect to a USB power source in the cockpit or have 30minutes to an hour to recharge between flights at the FBO/hangar, etc.
Conclusion:
Ultimately for me and my needs (wants), I value the HSI overlay on the map, the less cluttered display of flight data, and the slightly better flight planning UI of AAM than I do the slicker (slightly) graphics of GP and it's procedure 'binders'. On top of it all, Avilution's premium subscription to include geo-referenced approach plates and airport diagrams is about $40 cheaper than the comparable subscription from Garmin. That so far has lead me to favor AAM over GP, and when the free trials are up, I expect myself to go with a premium AAM subscription.
Hope this helps!
For comparisons sake, with each app, I did some regular VFR navigation and flew a GPS and ILS approach, and then explored the flight planning and wx/briefing tools while on the ground. Also, I have only about 2 days of use with each of these apps, so it is entirely possible, maybe even likely, that a capability that I think doesn't exist or deficient may actually be possible and I just haven't discovered it yet, though I have read fairly well through the manuals of both apps and hope that this isn't too much the case.
If you are a tl;dr type: Go with Avilution Aviation Maps. If you want to know how I came to that conclusion, read on.
I'll have a lot to say with regards to the UI, as in my opinion, the quality of an app for this purpose is greatly affected by how easily you can access, display, and use the features that the app can offer. They all offer moving maps, with overlays of wx, traffic, etc. They all offer geo-referenced approach plates and airport diagrams. So, how easy are they to use?
User Interface:
The overall appearance of the UI and responsiveness in use of Garmin Pilot (GP) is a little bit cleaner and faster than Avilution AvMaps (AAM). GP simply looks more professionally designed (but not by much), as it probably is, considering the overall aviation navigation experience of the corporate parent involved in its design. 'Buttons' are easy to read on both apps, however, on my Nexus 7 (2013), GP seems to be slightly more responsive to touch inputs when touching an airport or waypoint on the map. AAM sometimes lags little bit in comparison, sometimes even requiring touching the map again to get the info box to open. GP also seems to handle the high-res screen of the Nexus 7 better than AAM as well, though AAM is still quite good overall. For exmaple, when at tight zoom levels on GP, the sharpness is held just little better than the rendering achieved through AAM. I also prefer GP's method of displaying waypoint information when you touch it on the map, with its radial button array allowing quick access to the variety of things you might be looking for. AAM works pretty well with what it shows when touching a point on the map, but I feel that it is a little bit behind in it's UI design in that the box that pops up has fewer 'buttons' but still manages to cram more words for you to read while assessing what it is that you want to choose from. It's not hard to use what pops up in AAM, I just personally prefer the appearance and layout in GP. Another benefit of GP over AAM is that GP also lets you tap on more waypoints/navaids to open an information box about said item. See a VOR you want to direct-to? Just touch and hit Direct-To on the box that pops up. AAM will sort've do this. If there is a VOR collocated with an airport, and you want just the VOR, you'll never get it. Only the airport info box will pop up, which sure, you could eventually get to the navaid info, but it involved more steps than on GP in this method.
Despite all that praise for GP, there are a similar amount of things that I dislike about it compared to AAM, and unfortunately for GP, are big enough issues that lead me to prefer AAM. For example, GP does not have an HSI overlay on your map position! In order to see an HSI in GP, you have to open the split-screen function and show an HSI in the other half of the screen, along with some other silly digital 'steam gauges' that also don't readily display on the map. AAM shows an HSI overlay on your position on the map; that is an instant plus for me, and quite honestly, a pretty big deal. That seems to be quite a big oversight on Garmin's part to not include such an item. Next in AAM's favor, you get your GS, Heading, ALT and VS placed directly above your aircraft icon on the map, but not in a manner that is obtrusive or unsightly. I could do without the ALT and VS simply because it isn't a reliable piece of information from a tablet GPS system. In contrast, GP displays all of your flight data (GS, Heading, ETE, ETD, Next WYPNT, etc etc) in a row on the top of the screen, but there are so many items listed in the row that you have to swipe on the row left and ride to see everything! Granted, you can open up the split-screen function and again show these things there, but they don't go away on the map screen when in this mode, so it just eats up map space and is a pain to use. I dislike this all of this.
Both apps allow you to receive a briefing and file through your DUAT(S) account and have all of the text based WX information you want for your route of flight, however so far as I can tell, only AAM also downloads WX maps and charts (radar pictures, freeze levels, etc). I like this. They're about equal in terms of how quickly and unobtrusively you can access this information, which is to say that I can have text WX data/radar pictures on one side of the split-screen while still seeing my map position on the other side with either app. Both allow overlays on the map of all the radar/TFRs/satellite, etc, and they're both easy to make that happen.
I prefer slightly GPs method of accessing approach plates and procedures over AAMs. In GP, you can create 'binders' loaded with just the plates/procedures you want and then name the binder whatever you want to call it, or you can create a binder that contains all procedures and documents for specific airports (say, your departure and arrival airports). You can view and open your binders in the split screen while still monitoring the moving map. I like this better than AAMs process, where you can still see the list of procedures for an airport in the split screen, however AAM does not have a 'binder' capability (that I can tell), and instead it will just show a list from a drop-down button your 8 most recently accessed procedures. Not bad, but I don't prefer it.
A big gripe that I have with both apps is that the 'nearest' function only allows you to search for nearest airports. Want to see what the nearest navaids, intersections, or waypoints to you are because you just received an amended clearance in flight and you just need a specific navaid for example? You can't do that. This I just don't understand. My 12 year old garmin 430 can do this. Why can't these new-fangled apps do it? I'm going to be looking at nearest navaids, intersections, waypoints, etc more often than I am nearest airports, especially considering that I have a moving map that can show me where I am in relation to the airports visually!
Creating and altering a flight plan is pretty simple in both apps, so I won't go into the technical aspect of it much. You can insert departures/arrivals into your flight plan, use victor airways and they will include all of the appropriate waypoints/navaids along your route. This is nice. However I'll still have to give the nod to AAM. Building your flight plan is a little bit more intuitive and much much easier to see your nav log than on GP. Which brings me to another problem I have with GP: the nav log for your flight plan is so far as I can tell not visible while in split-screen mode or even while the map is being displayed (AAM allows this), and in order to see your nav log in GP you have to dive a few menus into the Flight Planning pages to see it. I want to be able to quickly see my nav log information and still see the map, and AAM has this covered pretty well. In fact, I was nearly convinced that GP didn't even provide a nav log, which would have been a huge faux pas, as it was so hard for me to find, as I was expecting it to be short and simple from the map screen to access it.
Battery Life: Slight Edge to AAM (maybe).
Using my 2013 Google Nexus 7 set to full brightness, I was getting a battery discharge rate of about 20% per hour of use with GP. That is in my opinion, quite acceptable. I would then expect to get at least a solid 4 hours of use on one battery charge before getting concerned about it.
With AAM, so far I seem to be getting about an 18% battery discharge rate per hour with my screen at full brightness. However, it is entirely possible that the variation between the two is not directly related to the performance of the apps and more about the specific conditions of the tablet in that moment. Regardless, about 20% discharge per hour seems reasonable on my device with either app, and I consider that to be pretty good. This isn't an issue if you can connect to a USB power source in the cockpit or have 30minutes to an hour to recharge between flights at the FBO/hangar, etc.
Conclusion:
Ultimately for me and my needs (wants), I value the HSI overlay on the map, the less cluttered display of flight data, and the slightly better flight planning UI of AAM than I do the slicker (slightly) graphics of GP and it's procedure 'binders'. On top of it all, Avilution's premium subscription to include geo-referenced approach plates and airport diagrams is about $40 cheaper than the comparable subscription from Garmin. That so far has lead me to favor AAM over GP, and when the free trials are up, I expect myself to go with a premium AAM subscription.
Hope this helps!
CoffeeIcePapers
Well-Hung Member
I agree. Garmin looks pretty, but the functionality isn't as good as AAM. I think Foreflight is a million times better than both apps, but because I prefer Android, I go with AAM. I don't like their interface for filing flight plans, I still use fltplan.com for that.
Looks like Fltplan has released Go for Android. I need to check it out.
Looks like Fltplan has released Go for Android. I need to check it out.
SquatThrust
Well-Known Member
I just recently downloaded that as well, and plan to look more closely at it soon. So far, my knee jerk reaction to it is that it will become pretty good after a few updates but still has some work to do. There are some common features that exist in FltPlan Go but are not yet activated. You get a pop up saying that the feature will be active in a future update. If it can get to about 90% of the UI quality of either Garmin or Avilution and still be free, I don't see why anyone would pay for something else.
MidlifeFlyer
Well-Known Member
IMO, while it is not my choice, Pilot has three main advantages for some users:
1. It's Garmin. Stability and longevity will mean a lot to some.
2. Cross-Platform. For those who move comfortably between and enjoy both operating systems or want a potential backup to use a different OS, that can be a big plus.
3. Consistent UI. I'm sure it's no coincidence that the Garmin Pilot touchscreen app has an interface just like the GTN600/700 series panel mounts.
Of the three. #2 would be the biggest plus for me, but it's not important enough for me to switch.
1. It's Garmin. Stability and longevity will mean a lot to some.
2. Cross-Platform. For those who move comfortably between and enjoy both operating systems or want a potential backup to use a different OS, that can be a big plus.
3. Consistent UI. I'm sure it's no coincidence that the Garmin Pilot touchscreen app has an interface just like the GTN600/700 series panel mounts.
Of the three. #2 would be the biggest plus for me, but it's not important enough for me to switch.
stick-n-rudder
Well-Known Member
Has anyone used FlightPro by AMS, on Android?
fholbert
Mod's - Please don't edit my posts!
They lied!
fholbert
Mod's - Please don't edit my posts!
Not getting an ipad was your call. iPad with HD maps... Wow!