Android EFB

Somedudeintn

Somedudeintn

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somedudeintn
Hey everyone, I currently use Foreflight on the iPad and iPhone, but am going to be ditching the iPhone for an android phone in about a month. I've thought about switching to Garmin pilot so I can have the same EFB on both devices, but also thought there was a free option for android I could possibly use as a backup.

Anyone else using an EFB on an iOS device and an android device? What are you all using?
 
I like WingX. Lots of options and reasonably priced. For free you can check out the Fltplan.com app.
 
For the same EFB cross-platform, i think there are only four players, and they have been mentioned. In some, there will be differences in function. Since your Android is a phone rather than tablet, you may be willing to accept a smaller function set some Android iterations have.

  • IFlyGPS is identical for both iOS and Android. I think it's also worth a look and I like what they have done with it.
  • Garmin Pilot seems to have slightly fewer functions in the Android version, but that seems to be more of a catch-up issue than anything else.
  • WingX is an excellent iOS choice but the Android version has probably half the functionality. But as I said, you might not care about more than very basic functions on a phone, so take a look and see.
  • FltPlan Go! Is free and substantially similar on both. It can be a bit quirky to some.

@flyingriki mentioned Avare. While that is not cross-platform, it brings up another possibility - different apps on each, especially if the one for the phone is free :) Whether that works for you or not depends on how much functionality you want on the phone and your comfort level with having different apps with different flows and UIs.

For example, like you, I have an iPad and an Android phone. My phone is ultimately an in-flight backup in a worst-case scenario, so I want to have both the functions and enough familiarity with the flow, and I'm pretty ok at that. But, for the most part it's just a ground lookup tool and (very minor) planning tool. My decision to use two different apps and choice of the "secondary" app was guided by that.
 
midlifeflyer said:
For example, like you, I have an iPad and an Android phone. My phone is ultimately an in-flight backup in a worst-case scenario, so I want to have both the functions and enough familiarity with the flow, and I'm pretty ok at that. But, for the most part it's just a ground lookup tool and (very minor) planning tool. My decision to use two different apps and choice of the "secondary" app was guided by that.
Click to expand...

I'm not clear which two you settled on.

But this thread interests me because iOS is generally getting worse for the same price or higher as stuff that's getting better, which wasn't always the case, but certainly is now -- and that's the wrong place to be in tech ownership.

The next phone if I dropped the iPhone today, wouldn't be an iPhone. It'd likely be Samsung.

My only beef with Samsung is they can't keep their heads straight on one of the major features of Android devices -- expandable storage with SD cards. Some of their phones do it, some don't. And they need to knock that crap off. Ha.
 
denverpilot said:
I'm not clear which two you settled on.
Click to expand...
That could be because I didn't say :D I thought my own personal choices were irrelevant to the discussion. But since you asked, I've managed to become familiar with most of the available ones on both platforms.

I've been using ForeFlight on my iPad for 5 years and will likely continue to use it at least so long as I continue to fly IFR. For IFR, it just does the essentials of what I want it to do the way I've gotten used to doing it, the increase of what I see as bloat features (features you don't want but must get to get features you do want) notwithstanding. If I stopped flying IFR, I'd probably go elsewhere because of the georeferenced airport diagram issue I talk about in other posts.

My Android EFB is AvNav EFB. It had what I think is a rocky start in terms of continuity of development but I really like the way it works. And the developer is very reachable, but that carries a bit of downside sine it reflects a small (although dedicated) user base. Plus there's a CB aspect - like some other EFB apps, it's free to CFIs, enough of a consideration for me for a backup app I never hope to need to use. For a full switch, others I would definitely consider are iFlyGPS, DroidEFB and, of course the 1,000 lb gorilla.
But this thread interests me because iOS is generally getting worse for the same price or higher as stuff that's getting better, which wasn't always the case, but certainly is now -- and that's the wrong place to be in tech ownership.

The next phone if I dropped the iPhone today, wouldn't be an iPhone. It'd likely be Samsung.

My only beef with Samsung is they can't keep their heads straight on one of the major features of Android devices -- expandable storage with SD cards. Some of their phones do it, some don't. And they need to knock that crap off. Ha.
Click to expand...
My phone is a Samsung. My Android tablet is ASUS. The Samsung is a 3-generation old S4 which, ever sice I finally found how to root it at all, works adequately. Yeah, I have the same gripe with Samsung as you plus their products tend to be loaded with junk that takes up a lot of space and you can't get rid of easily.
 
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denverpilot said:
I'm not clear which two you settled on.

But this thread interests me because iOS is generally getting worse for the same price or higher as stuff that's getting better, which wasn't always the case, but certainly is now -- and that's the wrong place to be in tech ownership.

The next phone if I dropped the iPhone today, wouldn't be an iPhone. It'd likely be Samsung.

My only beef with Samsung is they can't keep their heads straight on one of the major features of Android devices -- expandable storage with SD cards. Some of their phones do it, some don't. And they need to knock that crap off. Ha.
Click to expand...

Samsung lost their minds with the S6, eliminating almost all of the functionality that made their phones superior to the iPhone. Expandable memory, being waterproof, wireless charging, all went out the window in an attempt to be more Apple-ish.

When no one bought the S6, they came to their senses, and restored all that great stuff to the S7.

Now, if they can only get the Note 7 to stop exploding, all will be well. ;)
 
Jay Honeck said:
Samsung lost their minds with the S6, eliminating almost all of the functionality that made their phones superior to the iPhone. Expandable memory, being waterproof, wireless charging, all went out the window in an attempt to be more Apple-ish.

When no one bought the S6, they came to their senses, and restored all that great stuff to the S7.

Now, if they can only get the Note 7 to stop exploding, all will be well. ;)
Click to expand...

Yup. Man watching these tech giants just totally screw up and backtrack all the time is silly isn't it? LOL.

Loved the ArsTechnica headline on the Note 7 though... "Looks like the Note 7 can give you some bang for your buck after all!" ROFLMAO.

I wonder if they're stuck with their huge ad campaign push during NFL events for the thing, making fun of Americans getting stuff done.

LOL. Yeah, if those Americans are arsonists, they'll be really effective!

Poor Samsung. That recall has got to sting a bit. Because it burns!!!! LOL. (I crack myself up.)
 
I wonder who made Samsung's faulty batteries?

Prolly Takata, the people who made the faulty airbags... lol
 
Jay Honeck said:
I wonder who made Samsung's faulty batteries?

Prolly Takata, the people who made the faulty airbags... lol
Click to expand...

This is extremely old info, but back when dad was in the components biz, Samsung was famous for buying "seconds" and making stuff out of them.

Anything that failed the QC process in non-failure or subtle ways at any other manufacturer or assembler, that they could work around, Samsung would buy in bushel baskets.

I have no idea if that's still their MO today.

Normally they would use the components in such a way that they could engineer around the problem. RAM that had faulty segments (program around using the bad segments), pots that were out of spec for resistance value (measure them and/or make the firmware adjustable for the range of failure), stuff like that.

As a consumer, I've got a laser printer and a giant TV from them and both seem to work fine. Always seem to be about a year behind the leading edge, but Apple stopped innovating and they caught up I think in the phone market.

Well if they hadn't messed up the lithium battery charger design or whatever is causing their shorts.
 
denverpilot said:
This is extremely old info, but back when dad was in the components biz, Samsung was famous for buying "seconds" and making stuff out of them.
Click to expand...

lol I think it's safe to say that Samsung, now the world leader in consumer electronics (either #1 or #2 in the world, depending on how you measure success), has moved beyond their hard scrabble early years. My money is on them finding a shoddy subcontractor somewhere in their battery supply chain.

I've owned several of their TVs, smart phones, and tablets, and have been very happy with all of them. That's more than I can say about any other consumer electronics company, foreign or domestic.
 
Jay Honeck said:
lol I think it's safe to say that Samsung, now the world leader in consumer electronics (either #1 or #2 in the world, depending on how you measure success), has moved beyond their hard scrabble early years. My money is on them finding a shoddy subcontractor somewhere in their battery supply chain.

I've owned several of their TVs, smart phones, and tablets, and have been very happy with all of them. That's more than I can say about any other consumer electronics company, foreign or domestic.
Click to expand...

Companies rarely change their internal decision making stripes or cultures no matter how big they get. Immense amount of momentum and "we've always done it this way" attitude to kill. When your history is in making a profit off of junk parts, you'll always look for junk parts to see what you can do with them.

Example: Samsung SSDs. The smaller ones are usually just larger ones that didn't pass various tests. Disable half the thing and instead of a 1TB V-NAND wafer, and drive, you have a 500 MB one. Yay firmware. Less waste of stuff that didn't meet the original spec. But if you crack open the device you'll find the same die inside, labeled differently.

It doesn't lower the quality of the final product for the person expecting a 500 MB device *usually*. Especially since they test the hell out of the chunk of the die they decided to use.

The above is different than shopping for low cost parts from other manufacturers, sure, but I bet that's what they did with the batteries.

It's just (ingrained culturally) how they keep costs down. You won't find a nice Bourns resistor or pot in a Samsung where they could make a cheap poor tolerance resistor work.
 
I like the Avare app, I have been running on my Droid as a backup. The only thing that bugs me is I haven't figure out how to display Ground speed in MPH. In the Chief it would be nice, but certainly not a deal breaker.
 
WingNut42 said:
I like the Avare app, I have been running on my Droid as a backup. The only thing that bugs me is I haven't figure out how to display Ground speed in MPH. In the Chief it would be nice, but certainly not a deal breaker.
Click to expand...
Hi.
In Avare Menu>Preferences>Application State>Distance units>SM. TV
 
WingNut42 said:
Good grief that was simple. I can't tell you how long I have overlooked that. Thank you!
Click to expand...
Hi.
You are welcome.
Most of the feature / functions are described in the Menu>Help. For other questions or suggestions visit the Forum, a Search will likely answer most questions.
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/apps4av-forum
This is a Free, Open source app., available on github, and you can make your own changes if you want. TV
 
bluesideup said:
Hi.
In Avare Menu>Preferences>Application State>Distance units>SM. TV
Click to expand...

That tip hits on one of my mild pet peeves about software developers.

Nobody who doesn't code thinks "Application State" is anything but techno-babble.

How it ends up in menus is by not hiring people who DON'T speak technobabble to look over software for usability by the target market.

Who cares what the "Application State" is? Haha. Only a developer.

That one is especially heinous, considering even techies think "state" is something you monitor from either a external conditions that affect the application, or an internal "state machine".

Devs, please label things in non-technobabble English in menus. Seriously. It's embarrassing to explain crap like that to customers.

"It's under Application State..."

"What the hell does that mean?"

"Hell if I know. I'll file a bug against it, but I doubt anyone over there will care that it makes no sense to anyone but them..."

"Yeah. Thanks."
 
I have used Naviator on my Samsung Android tablet for years quite successfully. I find it funny that no one mentions them anymore.
 
Hi Nate and everyone.
I hope I am not side tracking this thread, if it comes across like it does please remove the post

I agree with your statement and Technical descriptions are understood / interpreted differently by Hardware and or Software engineers / developers. The original app. was very limited in scope and as demands, and additional features increased, they were added, and descriptions of the features were listed in sub menus that may not very descriptive.

One good thing about the app is that it is very simple in the way it's setup and if the user takes about 10 min to just read the Help and or go through the Menu / use it in Simulation mode, one will find out that this is very likely one of the easiest apps to use. Yes, I know not many of us want to do that, especially if you already are familiar with how other apps work, and you have some idea on how you would write it, and want to see it done. This being Open Source it allows you to make changes to your own liking, I make my own changes to it as I want to see it.
The goal of this app is to be able to get access to any needed in flight function in less than 5sec. and 3 steps.
All that said, I do agree that a better, more descriptive / detailed Help file would help. TV
 
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Jay Honeck said:
Now, if they can only get the Note 7 to stop exploding, all will be well. ;)
Click to expand...

The memes have started -- for your viewing pleasure, Jay. LOL!

972e922478c50134cfc9094dec0e7e08.jpg
 
Plus Android based tablets don't seem to shutdown due to over heating issues, unlike the ipads
 
bluesideup said:
Hi Nate and everyone.
I hope I am not side tracking this thread, if it comes across like it does please remove the post

I agree with your statement and Technical descriptions are understood / interpreted differently by Hardware and or Software engineers / developers. The original app. was very limited in scope and as demands, and additional features increased, they were added, and descriptions of the features were listed in sub menus that may not very descriptive.

One good thing about the app is that it is very simple in the way it's setup and if the user takes about 10 min to just read the Help and or go through the Menu / use it in Simulation mode, one will find out that this is very likely one of the easiest apps to use. Yes, I know not many of us want to do that, especially if you already are familiar with how other apps work, and you have some idea on how you would write it, and want to see it done. This being Open Source it allows you to make changes to your own liking, I make my own changes to it as I want to see it.
The goal of this app is to be able to get access to any needed in flight function in less than 5sec. and 3 steps.
All that said, I do agree that a better, more descriptive / detailed Help file would help. TV
Click to expand...
Are you a(the) developer? Love the app. Have you considered a double-tap to zoom? I noticed that double-tap isn't utilized, and may provide a useful function if you'd rather not do a one handed pinch to zoom. Perhaps, double tap=zoom, double-tap again, zoom, then at some point, double-tap back to default.
 
FallenBrick said:
Plus Android based tablets don't seem to shutdown due to over heating issues, unlike the ipads
Click to expand...

midlifeflyer said:
I doubt that's true. My Samsung phone has overheated.
Click to expand...

They wait longer so you can operate them until just before they're on fire. Never know when you might need that! Hehe.

The Internet is cruel. Next meme! Poor Samsung... Haha.

c05bc781bc6a54c79747f8648af9983f.jpg
 
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