Noticed it while making sure the iOS devices were up to date on things while I'm still at the office with "real" Internet today. LOL...
Not much at all in there for standard users or even "Pro" users... they're obviously chasing the flight department market and others...
Nate,
Don't get your panties in a bunch. ForeFlight tends to put out a release about once a month, with whatever new features are ready and stable. A single release with fewer new features than you want doesn't mean that they've given up on giving new features to non-Performance users. Plus, the Performance version is pretty new so I would expect there to be more low-hanging fruit for them to add in the flight department/performance version, while the parts of it that you and I use represent a very mature product, so even if the releases were a bit unbalanced right now I wouldn't be so offended.
Vast majority of the updates are for Performance users or Flight Department users.
Going down the bullet pointed list, I see 22 new features. 5 of those are for Europe, which is a brand-new market for them that has plenty of potential non-flight department users. So, I'll exclude those from the discussion.
That means 17 new features for US pilots. Of those, 3 are part of the "shared filed flights" which doesn't even make sense as a single pilot since you've had your filed flights all along. Of the other 14, only three are Performance-level only. So, you got 11 new features and you're bitching about the three that aren't for you?
Definitely not dancing with those that brought them much, anymore.
Still getting all new features for being anchor subscribers, long before flight departments would even LOOK at Foreflight, and thought tablets in cockpits were "cute". Loyalty discount.
You've got 11 new ones, out of 14 that you didn't already have as a single pilot. And like I said, the balance of features in a single release is not representative of the amount of effort being expended. Features are sometimes pushed back a release so that they can keep the cadence of releases going while maintaining good quality control.
Feel free to charge $400/year to the naysayers and flight departments... don't care... but... four tiers of users now on rental software???? Seriously Foreflight????
Where do you get four tiers? Basic, Pro, Performance. That's three. And I'd say that's a pretty good number to allow for the varying use cases. Basic is good for occasional, recreational, VFR pilots. Pro is good for those of us who fly a lot, are instrument rated, and use our airplanes for travel. Performance is good for those who fly professionally and/or own turbine aircraft. The amount of features those three groups use is quite different.
When did it initially release anyway? I couldn't find that info on their website. I was a relatively early adopter, Feb 2011 on a fricken iPad 1.
IIRC, ForeFlight started out before the app store even existed - It began as a mobile web site. Version 1.0 of the app came out about as soon as the App Store started, and as subscriptions weren't yet possible, it was a $75 app in a world of $0.99 apps, so it got noticed by plenty of non-aviators because it was so expensive. Back in the 1.0 days, it was strictly a planning tool - You had to have an internet connection, nothing was stored on device.
They've come a long way.
The “Performance” add on and the secret feature set only flight departments with shared accounts can utilize (like distributing documents which would be a GREAT club feature, as would getting the bulk discounts available to flight departments through a club...)
You can already do this... I think. I know you can link a Dropbox account to it on the normal version, and I think if you merely created a shared Dropbox account and had each club member link it (via plan.foreflight.com/account -> Integrations) then everyone would get the documents in the Apps/ForeFlight folder on that account.
That’s the impression one gets from their current strategy anyway. They’re chasing the corporate bucks. No advanced features for the people who made their company even possible.
Which Performance features would you like to have, Nate? Do you have a company fuel policy to adhere to? Do you want to be alerted passing through 18,000 feet? (Actually, you do get that feature already I think.) Do you want to be able to save a buck fifty in fuel on your next flight because it turns out the extra climb *just* makes sense with the headwind and two knot TAS increase?
Paying more for Performance Plus or whatever the new “cool kids” tier is, isn’t worth it.
EXACTLY!!!!! Unless you have a turbine or fly one for work, Performance doesn't really do anything for you... Like I said in a post a couple days ago. You aren't missing anything, you seem to just be angry that other people get features they need (and you don't).
And yes, I did ask if they’d do a “club” setup for their “flight department” stuff including the discounts the bulk buyers get. The answers were mixed. They don’t have that market in mind.
I thought about this a while back, but it just doesn't make sense to treat the club as a "flight department." I'm sure they expect to be paid all at once, on one card, to justify the discount. So what do you do with all of the time-staggered subscriptions that club members already have? What do you do when someone leaves the club, or someone else joins? What do you do when some club members want Basic, some want Pro, and some want Performance for some reason? And how does the club bill the individual members for their share of the club subscription?
After thinking through how we might handle such a thing in our club, I decided it wasn't even worth asking about.
Garmin is nearly on equal footing with them now and even has some features I would actually describe as “done better”. No special charge for their “Performance” thing as one example.
I have the premium Garmin Pilot subscription in addition to my ForeFlight subscription. Garmin does very little that ForeFlight doesn't, and every time Garmin comes out with a release, I read the release notes and think, "Yup, ForeFlight's had all this for a year or three already."
Were it not for Database Concierge, I wouldn't bother with the GP subscription.
I won’t log in anything that requires a subscription unless it’s a dedicated logging app.
That’s vendor lock-in that’ll keep someone on the EFB when something better for them comes along, for no good reason whatsoever.
The only thing I require of any logging app is that I am able to export my data at any time so I can use another tool if I choose to at some point.
The best part about logging in ForeFlight is that it's mostly already done for me, and attaches a track log! That's pretty cool.
Is THAT why that stopped working?! You used to be able to do that from the airport dot on the regular chart.
If that’s been removed, that’s utterly annoying. I’ll have to try that out.
No, the behavior hasn't changed on that in a LONG time.
If you have a layer up that puts something on top of the airport, a simple tap of the thing on top of the airport will take you into airport data. For example, if you're showing fuel prices and you tap on a price, it'll take you to the "FBOs" pane for the airport, while having the Ceiling layer enabled means a tap takes you to the METAR pane instead. Having the Aeronautical layer enabled on top of the chart means that if you have an airport icon showing from the Aero layer, you can tap and see the Info pane.
Without any layers enabled - IE, just showing the chart - You tap and hold for about 1/2 second and then tap "Details." That has been that way since around version 6 or so, a LONG time ago. Of course, if the airport is in your flight plan, just a tap will still bring up the info. For a version or so after that, there was a preference to choose whether it was just tap or tap-and-hold, but the tap option was removed in favor of having the option to bring up a specific chart and/or chart legends right on the Maps page. (Preferences -> Map View -> Map Touch Action).
I hope this clears a few things up, and lets people know that ForeFlight hasn't forgotten us little guys... But I expect our resident curmudgeon will still find a way to be offended.
