ForeFlight 7.2 available

TangoWhiskey

TangoWhiskey

Touchdown! Greaser!
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3Green
http://blog.foreflight.com/2015/07/...raphical-flight-notifications-foreflight-7-2/

Glad to see the W&B profiles included in the sync between your devices! This was a suggestion I sent in a couple of months ago. Make a change to the arms/moments/empty weights, or define an aircraft on your iPad, and it will show up on your other devices and stay in sync.

The ability to get graphical depictions of planned route weather changes is great, too!

 
Is this the release that works with Android?
 
EdFred said:
Is this the release that works with Android?
Click to expand...

ForeFlight runs great on Android.

bfde8bd69cc57e88e65f8fc93b9a4407.jpg
 
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JeffDG said:
They can spend their time adding new features, or they can build for android.
Click to expand...

Which is why I try not to support companies with lazy workers. Saying "we won't do android" is nothing but pure laziness.

Though, I don't use Android either, so it really doesn't prevent me from using it. But, I will refuse to ever use their product just on principle.
 
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JeffDG said:
They can spend their time adding new features, or they can build for android.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I'm sure the creators of FF would rather add a few more bonus features in there, as opposed to increasing their sales base by an enormous margin by being able to operate on both major OS platforms. :rolleyes:
 
At some point Foreflight will have to make the leap to the Jedi side of the Force, or Garmin will eat their lunch. With Android dominating the world, it's only a matter of time, especially as the early adopters of iPad age out.
 
Jay Honeck said:
At some point Foreflight will have to make the leap to the Jedi side of the Force, or Garmin will eat their lunch. With Android dominating the world, it's only a matter of time, especially as the early adopters of iPad age out.
Click to expand...

Age out? Really?

List the number of operating systems that lasted 30 years or more.

The whole tablet scenario is going to be completely different in just a few years, and Android will not look like it does today.
 
MAKG1 said:
Age out? Really?

List the number of operating systems that lasted 30 years or more.

The whole tablet scenario is going to be completely different in just a few years, and Android will not look like it does today.
Click to expand...
Agreed.

Most iOS v Android "nyah nyah" discussions sound like a political or religious ones. Or middle-schoolers talking about how their team is better than the once across town.
 
I think the point is that FF is missing out on a huge part of the market by not adapting their software to an OS with significant market share. It would be like Facebook or eBay only making apps for iOS, when more people own Android devices. I have used Garmin and FltPlan Mobile on my Galaxy S2/S5, and just downloaded Avare (free) on my new Galaxy Tab S 8.4, which looked pretty nice.
 
midlifeflyer said:
Agreed.

Most iOS v Android "nyah nyah" discussions sound like a political or religious ones. Or middle-schoolers talking about how their team is better than the once across town.
Click to expand...
I wasn't referring to the OS, per se. I was referring to the early adopters of iPad.

By virtue of Apple's tablet being first to market, iPad jumped off to a huge lead amongst pilots. Those who start with one OS tend to stick with it.

Now that there are a plethora of aviation apps for Android, as those early iPad pilots age out of flying, you'll see more Android stuff coming to the fore. Foreflight should take heed.
 
SoonerAviator said:
I think the point is that FF is missing out on a huge part of the market by not adapting their software to an OS with significant market share. It would be like Facebook or eBay only making apps for iOS, when more people own Android devices. I have used Garmin and FltPlan Mobile on my Galaxy S2/S5, and just downloaded Avare (free) on my new Galaxy Tab S 8.4, which looked pretty nice.
Click to expand...

If I were running Foreflight there is no way in hell I would decide to launch on Android. That'd take a MAJOR investment, would likely take twice as long as anyone would guess, and would hamper my abilities to continue to dominate on iOS...while virtually guaranteeing I would be delivering a subpar product in the future compared to what I could do by focusing on one platform.

Considering how if I see a pilot with a tablet it's basically always an iPad I think that's plenty sound of a strategy for the foreseeable future.
 
jesse said:
If I were running Foreflight there is no way in hell I would decide to launch on Android. That'd take a MAJOR investment, would likely take twice as long as anyone would guess, and would hamper my abilities to continue to dominate on iOS...while virtually guaranteeing I would be delivering a subpar product in the future compared to what I could do by focusing on one platform.

Considering how if I see a pilot with a tablet it's basically always an iPad I think that's plenty sound of a strategy for the foreseeable future.
Click to expand...

*cough* post 5 *cough*
 
jesse said:
Clearly you haven't managed large software projects across multiple platforms :)

It's not lazy. It's reality.
Click to expand...

For many many years software was written for DOS then Windows which had WAY more hardware combinations that Android does. Hell the stuff even worked with hardware combinations I built. Same with *nix. No one made a huge stink then.

Foreflight claims it's because of hardware issues. I call BS. It's laziness.
 
jesse said:
Clearly you haven't managed large software projects across multiple platforms :)

It's not lazy. It's reality.
Click to expand...

I've mananged (mangled?) mammoth software projects using single platform, and it was always a nightmare.

This is what happens when the general public plays with complex software - they think it's easy. The easier software is to use, the more complex it is under the hood, and the more difficult (and time-consuming) it is to build.
 
EdFred said:
For many many years software was written for DOS then Windows which had WAY more hardware combinations that Android does. Hell the stuff even worked with hardware combinations I built. Same with *nix. No one made a huge stink then.

Foreflight claims it's because of hardware issues. I call BS. It's laziness.
Click to expand...

You think they're just partying and drinking beer and their developers are only working a third of the time they could be? More like the reality is they're busting their ass to deliver on the features they want to deliver on iOS.

How exactly is one going to add a new platform without slowing your pace? You either have to hire more developers and more supporting employees or you have to put your existing developers onto building on a platform they know little to nothing about. Either way you're going to slow **** down and simply "not being lazy" isn't going to make up for the fact that it will cost you more money...money that might not generate a significant enough return.

They're completely different platforms. There is no just moving the code over and changing a few things. If you want to be the best and deliver a great experience on both you're going to end up writing everything twice and maintaining everything twice. You'll need employees skilled on that platform. You'll need to train your support employees on a new platform. It's going to cost more than twice the money to pull off. Probably three times the engineering costs...and even then the experience will suffer compared to if you would have just stuck with one platform.
 
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One of the reasons why Foreflight is as good as it is may very well be due to focusing on iOS. It is not a typical simple mobile app that is either easy to port or can be easily developed using cross platform tools. A lot of the cross platform tools are not great if you're not building a generic type game app. It would be a major undertaking for them to support Android if they're not using a cross platform framework. How much effort? How about more than twice as much effort (and associated cost). Would they more than double their market? Probably not. I wouldn't do it either if I were them.
 
jesse said:
You think they're just partying and drinking beer and their developers are only working a third of the time they could be? More like the reality is they're busting their ass to deliver on the features they want to deliver on iOS.

How exactly is one going to add a new platform without slowing your pace? You either have to hire more developers and more supporting employees or you have to put your existing developers onto building on a platform they know little to nothing about. Either way you're going to slow **** down and simply "not being lazy" isn't going to make up for the fact that it will cost you more money...money that might not be worth the return.

They're completely different platforms. There is no just moving the code over and changing a few things. If you want to be the best and deliver a great experience on both you're going to end up writing everything twice and maintaining everything twice. You'll need employees skilled on that platform. You'll need to train your support employees on a new platform. It's going to cost more than twice the money to pull off.
Click to expand...

Do what a lot of my customers do. Farm it out to people who *DO* know Android better. Nothing has to slow down internally, and you aren't wasting time with your iOS guys trying to learn Android. I bet if they gave even 1/4 of a rat's ass they could easily find willing developers to do it.

But they don't. Ivory towers and all.
 
EdFred said:
Do what a lot of my customers do. Farm it out to people who *DO* know Android better. Nothing has to slow down internally, and you aren't wasting time with your iOS guys trying to learn Android. I bet if they gave even 1/4 of a rat's ass they could easily find willing developers to do it.

But they don't. Ivory towers and all.
Click to expand...

That's not a recipe for a quality product and that's not something that doesn't cost significant money. They would have a hell of a time finding a partner that would in it for the long haul, would build something as polished as they do on iOS, and would know enough about aviation to pull that all off.

You'd spend a significant amount of time babysitting, the Android version would always lag way behind, and you can't farm things out by just making a single decision to "not be lazy". You have to like, spend money, and stuff. Then you have to pay people to babysit. That all costs a lot of money...money you might not ever make back...while risking your brand if what you deliver turns out to be junk.
 
Seems to work for my customers. I guess my customers have better management.
 
Hasn't the "ForeFlight on Android" topic been beaten to death already?

The iPad "early adopters" aren't running the current version ForeFlight on that first iPad. I suspect that many "early adopters" are on their second, third, or fourth iPad by now.

If the undertaking to port to Android was worth the effort, ForeFlight would do it. I won't address the technical challenges, but the demonstrated profitability of the two platforms for app developers couldn't be more different.

I've never sensed any "religious" objection from ForeFlight to using a different platform. Using cheap hardware to download free apps to boost marketshare doesn't automatically equate to a platform mature enough to support an expensive app targeted at the professional pilot.

Every year, I keep trying Garmin Pilot on iOS to compare it with ForeFlight, and so far, every year I've walked away disappointed. It's improved, but it still has some of the same fundamental problems that it's always had with respect to data integrity, which makes it unreliable as an EFB. I do like some of the features, but there's a reason why ForeFlight is holding users on the iPad--the Android competition just isn't nearly as good. I suspect that's why this topic brings out the Apple haters in force. Spending $500, $800, or $1,000 on a headset is no problem, but a $400 iPad to run a $150/year app in the world of $5k radios and $15k GPS units is apparently too much for some folks.


JKG
 
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JGoodish said:
Spending $500, $800, or $1,000 on a headset is no problem, but a $400 iPad to run a $150/year app in the world of $5k radios and $15k GPS units is apparently too much for some folks.


JKG
Click to expand...

Not the case with me. I would spend MORE just because I despise Apple's business practices, and I refuse to own an iAnything. In fact, I would spend more than double. I also refuse to shop at WalMart unless absolutely forced to. (I've gone there once in the past 15 years)
 
narchee said:
One of the reasons why Foreflight is as good as it is may very well be due to focusing on iOS. It is not a typical simple mobile app that is either easy to port or can be easily developed using cross platform tools. A lot of the cross platform tools are not great if you're not building a generic type game app. It would be a major undertaking for them to support Android if they're not using a cross platform framework. How much effort? How about more than twice as much effort (and associated cost). Would they more than double their market? Probably not. I wouldn't do it either if I were them.
Click to expand...

Why do you need to double the market for it to be a profitable endeavor? It's not as if they would require a 50% increase in market share for it to be profitable to add Android compatibility. Also, it's not as if those who develop applications are ignorant on all other OS platforms other than iOS. Many app developers are as just as happy to develop on one platform versus another, it just uses different coding. I'm willing to bet it would be profitable and you wouldn't see much, if any, degradation on the iOS-side of the app if they were to pursue it. Chances are, they just don't care, or don't want to accept the risk of having the project fail.

It's not as if Garmin is free, but they don't seem to be having too many issues with it, and FltPlan IS free, yet they are able to bring the basic tenets of FF onto Android with decent success.
 
As someone who's invested in the Apple hardware, I'd selfishly rather they spend my $150/year developing improving the current product and releasing new features, rather than catering to the folks who 1) hate apple 2) too cheap for apple, or 3) are convinced Android is such a better platform that they'd rather do without ForeFlight than join the Apple darkside.

I'm with Jesse...I see a lot of expense, headaches, without much upside. When you run a business, you accept that you can't be all things to all customers. So folks like EdFred will be ignored unless it makes financial sense otherwise.
 
SoonerAviator said:
Why do you need to double the market for it to be a profitable endeavor? It's not as if they would require a 50% increase in market share for it to be profitable to add Android compatibility. Also, it's not as if those who develop applications are ignorant on all other OS platforms other than iOS. Many app developers are as just as happy to develop on one platform versus another, it just uses different coding. I'm willing to bet it would be profitable and you wouldn't see much, if any, degradation on the iOS-side of the app if they were to pursue it. Chances are, they just don't care, or don't want to accept the risk of having the project fail.

It's not as if Garmin is free, but they don't seem to be having too many issues with it, and FltPlan IS free, yet they are able to bring the basic tenets of FF onto Android with decent success.
Click to expand...

I'm not sure if you're familiar with software development for iOS versus Android, so apologies if I'm telling you what you know but here goes. Foreflight is a very well written piece of software and does not have a generic web app or cross platform feel about it. It is highly likely it is written natively for the iOS using Objective C. You can't just recompile or easily port that to Android. You're talking about a lot of effort to recreate that user interface. So you could easily have to more than double your R&D budget in the short term to do this. It would be very expensive for them. So the question is what would it do for them in terms of new customers? I'm also not a huge Apple fan but I like Foreflight and deal with the fact that it comes on iOS devices. People like me and others who like Apple devices probably make a large majority of their possible market.

Selfishly too, I will admit, I don't want them wasting their R&D dollars on Android compatibility instead of improving their product for me.

You mention fltplan. I use fltplan too because it has a lot of features and functionality. It has, however, a truly awful user interface. Such an awful interface is easy to port to the Android. It can get away with its poor interface because it doesn't really need a friendly interface for basically filing flight plans behind the scenes.
 
Can't comment on operating systems because I'm not in that area of the world. I'll say this, foreflight is a tremendous product and a product I plan on supporting for as long as I can. For a VFR pilot, it's just about the best money a pilot can spend. I've never used any of it's competitors because I've never had to. Keep up the good work foreflight!

With regards to apple, the people who refuse to buy thing because of "business principles," crack me up. I applaud the sense of "I'll make a difference" but please, get off of your high horse. It's business, business is about making money, always has been and always will be. You want to make a difference, fly Angel Flights or Pilots and Paws flights or volunteer, become involved in a charity, whatever it is. Don't kid yourself by thinking you are taking a moral stand by not buying from a company because of their practices when all you are doing in reality is denying yourself.
 
EdFred said:
Not the case with me. I would spend MORE just because I despise Apple's business practices, and I refuse to own an iAnything. In fact, I would spend more than double. I also refuse to shop at WalMart unless absolutely forced to. (I've gone there once in the past 15 years)
Click to expand...
Which business practices of Apple do you despise?
 
jesse said:
You think they're just partying and drinking beer and their developers are only working a third of the time they could be? More like the reality is they're busting their ass to deliver on the features they want to deliver on iOS.

How exactly is one going to add a new platform without slowing your pace? You either have to hire more developers and more supporting employees or you have to put your existing developers onto building on a platform they know little to nothing about. Either way you're going to slow **** down and simply "not being lazy" isn't going to make up for the fact that it will cost you more money...money that might not generate a significant enough return.

They're completely different platforms. There is no just moving the code over and changing a few things. If you want to be the best and deliver a great experience on both you're going to end up writing everything twice and maintaining everything twice. You'll need employees skilled on that platform. You'll need to train your support employees on a new platform. It's going to cost more than twice the money to pull off. Probably three times the engineering costs...and even then the experience will suffer compared to if you would have just stuck with one platform.
Click to expand...
Not only that, but if they did decide to invest the time and money into developing an android version, most of their new android users would probably be people dropping the IOS products. They would be cannibalizing their main customer base.
 
JGoodish said:
Every year, I keep trying Garmin Pilot on iOS to compare it with ForeFlight, and so far, every year I've walked away disappointed. It's improved, but it still has some of the same fundamental problems that it's always had with respect to data integrity, which makes it unreliable as an EFB. I do like some of the features, but there's a reason why ForeFlight is holding users on the iPad--the Android competition just isn't nearly as good. I suspect that's why this topic brings out the Apple haters in force. Spending $500, $800, or $1,000 on a headset is no problem, but a $400 iPad to run a $150/year app in the world of $5k radios and $15k GPS units is apparently too much for some folks.
Click to expand...

You hit on one of my long-time observations: The iPad and ForeFlight combined is one of the cheapest investments I've made in 37 years of aviating. I own Android products. The iPad was the first Apple purchase for me and ForeFlight is what sold me. I'm now on my third (or fourth?) iPad and the combination has met my needs flawlessly for four years. I have zero incentive to change.

(I will admit it's been seductive....despite being a 30+ year DOS/Windows/PC guy I now also have the iPhone, a Mac Mini and a MacBook Air!)
 
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EdFred said:
Not the case with me. I would spend MORE just because I despise Apple's business practices, and I refuse to own an iAnything. In fact, I would spend more than double. I also refuse to shop at WalMart unless absolutely forced to. (I've gone there once in the past 15 years)
Click to expand...


So, it's a religious issues for you, not a technical issue. That's cool. It's just important that we all understand the perspective's being offered in these discussions. I was never a huge Apple fan (some would have called me a strong detractor), but when I saw ForeFlight on the iPad I bought one immediately and never looked back. Features/usability trumped any ideological impediments.
 
LDJones said:
So, it's a religious issues for you, not a technical issue. That's cool. It's just important that we all understand the perspective's being offered in these discussions. I was never a huge Apple fan (some would have called me a strong detractor), but when I saw ForeFlight on the iPad I bought one immediately and never looked back. Features/usability trumped any ideological impediments.
Click to expand...
Same here. I used to scorn Apple and Apple (mac) users. Now, I are one!
 
I teach CS part-time at a local university. The students always ask what my favorite programming language/computer/OS is. I explain that I'm language-agnostic - my favorite language is whatever I'm being paid to use, whatever computer I'm being paid to use, and that the check clears. In my non-business life, I use whatever benefits me most.
 
LDJones said:
So, it's a religious issues for you, not a technical issue. That's cool. It's just important that we all understand the perspective's being offered in these discussions. I was never a huge Apple fan (some would have called me a strong detractor), but when I saw ForeFlight on the iPad I bought one immediately and never looked back. Features/usability trumped any ideological impediments.
Click to expand...

I was never a Apple fan either, but an iPad investment in 2010 sucked me in. For me, the Apple/Foreflight combination of hardware/software is superior to anything else on the market. Perhaps that may change in the future, but for now I'm not going away from my iPad or iPhone.

What's unfortunate for software developers like ForeFlight is that they actively draw customers away from Android devices to Apple, and pay Apple a percentage of the subscription cost for the privilege doing so. And the end of the day, this aviation market is so small potatoes that I doubt Apple even knows it exists.
 
Brad Z said:
I was never a Apple fan either, but an iPad investment in 2010 sucked me in. For me, the Apple/Foreflight combination of hardware/software is superior to anything else on the market. Perhaps that may change in the future, but for now I'm not going away from my iPad or iPhone.

What's unfortunate for software developers like ForeFlight is that they actively draw customers away from Android devices to Apple, and pay Apple a percentage of the subscription cost for the privilege doing so. And the end of the day, this aviation market is so small potatoes that I doubt Apple even knows it exists.
Click to expand...
Which is exactly the reason I always suspected Apple didn't really care too much about the Bluetooth issue with GPS devices in IOS 8.3 and why they didn't issue a separate update to address it.
 
I always gave my wife a hard time about her dedication to Apple, I had an Android phone and a PC on my desk, screw Apple! Until I flew with a buddy in my 421 and he had our route on his iPad before I could get it plugged into my 530! Within a week I had my first iPad, now I am on my second one and I have an iPhone! My son has an iPad for FF but uses an Android phone, and a Mac laptop. :dunno:
LDJones said:
So, it's a religious issues for you, not a technical issue. That's cool. It's just important that we all understand the perspective's being offered in these discussions. I was never a huge Apple fan (some would have called me a strong detractor), but when I saw ForeFlight on the iPad I bought one immediately and never looked back. Features/usability trumped any ideological impediments.
Click to expand...
 
And 7.2 appears to be working fine on iOS 9 beta on iphone 6+
 
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