I LOVE the new version of the Navionics app especially the new presentation of your collection of "favorites" areas. You get just about everything you could use or need in one integrated display. Look what is displayed..
- Current weather, including wind speed and direction
- Sunrise, sunset, moonrise, moon set, moon phase
- Projected weather
- Tide (nearby station)
- Current (nearby station)
Everything you need in a single integrated display. The Navionics user interface designers must have had some interesting discussions on how to get all this into a single screen.
There is a minor problem with the current version, however. I have been working with Navionics on getting a minor nag corrected:
In this display, you can see three different representations of the state of the tide:
- In the upper part of the image, inside a blue circle, an "emptying glass" icon showing that the tide is at 5.8 feet and falling,
- in the "Details section, a graph showing the tide curve and where we are on it, and
- in the "Details" section, another "emptying glass" icon showing that we are at 5.8 feet... AND RISING
That's right... The icon in the Details section has the arrow indicating the wrong direction. This error only occurs for a little while around slack (high & low), but still, it is wrong.
I bring this up only to emphasize that the Navionics personnel are very, VERY responsive to customer input, and they are actively working on this (pretty trivial) issue; it will probably be fixed by the time you read this. I appreciate that they are continually fine tuning and improving their software. And I have talked before about their involvement with community-oriented crowd-sourcing of depth information before. These are good folks, people!
I love these folks, and I love this app! If you don't have it, how could turn down a replacement for a chartplotter that sells for as little as this? Answer: you can't.
Get it.
Get it.
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3 comments:
Like how the app integrates relevant data for location. Have you used it on an Pad? I prefer it over a smartphone due to the larger screen. Currently using InavX, Ayetides, and Marine Traffic as my go to navigation aids. Do you use an AIS transponder?
Wallace -
No, I don't have an iPad... Nor do I have an AIS transponder. But I do have an AIS receiver hooked up to my chart plotter.
There are two places that the Navionics app fails me as a primary:
First, there is no way for me to integrate it with my autopilot.
Second, getting AIS data to it is not possible - for me using an iPhone at least.
But it serves as a great backup, and I make extensive use of the sonar chart options, the integrated info display in the post, and I have added depth soundings and marks all over the place with it.
Great review and I'm glad to hear they are working on that confusing problem. It's nice to have this kind of information even when not at the helm. When the boat is at anchor and you're away from it, for instance. Off to buy this app!
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