ForeFlight 4.0 is out!

Artiom said:
Thanks, that was what I forgot about. Entering altitude in route window! I figured out default altitude but that rather inconvenient to change altitude in the settings each time you plan a flight. Adding altitude in the route box is much better.
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Yup. Here's what I do - Usually on shorter flights in the 182, I'm cruising at 4500 or 5500 VFR, or from 4000-6000 IFR. So, I just set the default altitude as 5000 and the winds are plenty close enough for planning purposes.

When I make my final decision as to the route I'm going to file, I'll add the altitude, if it's other than 5000.
 
It's probably simple, but how do I edit a route in the map view and have it change the file/brief page? I find that if I click on the Map icon on the Brief and then change the route, it shows up as a new brief with today as the departure date.
 
gprellwitz said:
It's probably simple, but how do I edit a route in the map view and have it change the file/brief page? I find that if I click on the Map icon on the Brief and then change the route, it shows up as a new brief with today as the departure date.
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If I'm understanding correctly, it is exhibiting the expected behavior. On the other hand, I'm not sure exactly what you're trying to do... Start at File & Brief, go back to Maps and make a new flight plan, and then go back to the old flight plan with the new flight plan's route in File & Brief? :dunno:

There's no need to put any dates or any of that in until you're actually going to file your flight plan and get the official briefing - So if you're looking at going to Wings in a couple weeks, for example, there's no point in filling out the flight plan form yet, because if you do, yes ForeFlight is going to see a new route and say "Yup, that's a different flight plan..."

Am I missing something?
 
flyingcheesehead said:
If I'm understanding correctly, it is exhibiting the expected behavior. On the other hand, I'm not sure exactly what you're trying to do... Start at File & Brief, go back to Maps and make a new flight plan, and then go back to the old flight plan with the new flight plan's route in File & Brief? :dunno:

There's no need to put any dates or any of that in until you're actually going to file your flight plan and get the official briefing - So if you're looking at going to Wings in a couple weeks, for example, there's no point in filling out the flight plan form yet, because if you do, yes ForeFlight is going to see a new route and say "Yup, that's a different flight plan..."

Am I missing something?
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It's just that I was using the flight plan to enter the plane information, etc., and going back and forth between map and flight plan would end up with a whole bunch of plans in there, and then I'd need to figure out which was the one I was actually going to use and try not to confuse myself. And during a flight, wouldn't changing the route result in creating a new flight plan while en route?

It's probably just that I haven't actually used it enough to understand how to use it effectively.
 
flyingcheesehead said:
You can also set a default aircraft there if you enter more than one.
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I have entered only one. My flight plan data doesn't seem to use the speeds or fuel burn for it by default.

Bug, or something I'm messing up?

You don't *really* need two to set a default do you? That'd definitely be a bug...
 
Skylane81E said:
One thing I noticed (and advised FF about) was that on 4.0 GNB vanished.

Fell into the gap between two sectionals...
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I don't like that. In overlap areas I really want a way to "lock" my view onto one chart or the other.

I've seen important airway and other data get lost under the adjoining chart.
 
denverpilot said:
I have entered only one. My flight plan data doesn't seem to use the speeds or fuel burn for it by default.

Bug, or something I'm messing up?

You don't *really* need two to set a default do you? That'd definitely be a bug...
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Go to More->Aircraft. Is there a check mark next to your airplane? What if you tap on it, is there a checkmark now? Go back to Maps and enter a flight plan without a tail number. Do you get winds? Add a tail number. Do you get winds now?

I'm curious to hear the results...
 
gprellwitz said:
It's just that I was using the flight plan to enter the plane information, etc., and going back and forth
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Hmmm. First question - Why?

You can enter airspeed, altitude, and fuel burn right into the text box on maps.

If you fly a particular airplane, like Whiskers for example, a lot you can enter the airplane's speed, fuel burn, and default altitude in More->Aircraft and just pop the tail number into the flight plan box on Maps instead - And any additional info you give will override what's in the aircraft profile.

So, entering airplane info on the flight plan is definitely doing things the hard way.

Changing things enroute won't result in a new flight plan unless you hit "File & Brief" after changing it.
 
I love the upgrade, specifically the way they addressed my concern over SUA info.

The plates page is nice, but I hope that in a future revision they figure out a way for takeoff minimums to stay scrolled to the page in question (as it is now, it reverts back to the first takeoff minimum page when one leaves that plate).

Wells
 
W. Stewart said:
The plates page is nice, but I hope that in a future revision they figure out a way for takeoff minimums to stay scrolled to the page in question (as it is now, it reverts back to the first takeoff minimum page when one leaves that plate).
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Oooh, good catch. Consider it reported!
 
flyingcheesehead said:
Go to More->Aircraft. Is there a check mark next to your airplane? What if you tap on it, is there a checkmark now? Go back to Maps and enter a flight plan without a tail number. Do you get winds? Add a tail number. Do you get winds now?

I'm curious to hear the results...
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May have spoken too soon. Seems to work with only one.
 
gprellwitz said:
Because I don't know any better? Thanks for the tips! :yes:
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Ahh, you silly Windows users, always doing things the hard way. ;) :goofy:


That was always my favorite part of teaching users who were transitioning from Windows to Mac - This conversation:

Me: <explain how to do some task>
Them: "Then what?"
Me: "That's it, you're done."
Them: "That's all? Really?"

Of course, I recently installed Windows 7 on my MacBook Pro for work. Man, I don't know how people put up with Windows! Doing some fairly simple things was a royal PITA compared to what I'm used to.
 
TangoWhiskey said:
Agreed. The new version is way to sensitive to touch on the map screen. Even trying to 'scroll' the map to a new location (to look around) causes it to pop up the waypoints box.
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+1 ... I won't make suggestions on how to fix, but WAY to sensitive. Seems I pop up the waypoint box a couple dozen times every time I open FF. Love the app and this isn't a killer, but this recent change is a step in the wrong direction IMHO.
 
iflyforfun said:
+1 ... I won't make suggestions on how to fix, but WAY to sensitive. Seems I pop up the waypoint box a couple dozen times every time I open FF. Love the app and this isn't a killer, but this recent change is a step in the wrong direction IMHO.
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+10000 on this. We were trying to look something up last night and every time we got a finger close to the screen that box popped up. It needs to be fixed.
 
iflyforfun said:
+1 ... I won't make suggestions on how to fix, but WAY to sensitive. Seems I pop up the waypoint box a couple dozen times every time I open FF. Love the app and this isn't a killer, but this recent change is a step in the wrong direction IMHO.
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+2. What a PITA. Lot's of inadvertant waypoint popups. Roll this one back. (email sent too.)
 
Mr. Cheesehead -
Thank you for all of your responses to questions asked. Your time and expertise are greatly appreciated.
 
alaskaflyer said:
Yep. Just got an email back saying that 4.0.2 will roll this back to a press and hold instead of a single tap :rockon:
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You don't know how bad I wanted to tell you guys that, but I'm not allowed to. They, of course, can say whatever they want. :yes:

I just get to say "Uh, hey guys, I think xxx could work better" or "xxx is broken" before the release version, when the entire world starts to say that. ;)
 
flyingcheesehead said:
You don't know how bad I wanted to tell you guys that, but I'm not allowed to. They, of course, can say whatever they want. :yes:

I just get to say "Uh, hey guys, I think xxx could work better" or "xxx is broken" before the release version, when the entire world starts to say that. ;)
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Did I tell you that I know where their office is? They're renting office space from a vendor I managed when I was back at Santa Fe. The office is owned by "SMBology."
 
flyingcheesehead said:
You don't know how bad I wanted to tell you guys that, but I'm not allowed to. They, of course, can say whatever they want. :yes:

I just get to say "Uh, hey guys, I think xxx could work better" or "xxx is broken" before the release version, when the entire world starts to say that. ;)
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The joys of NDAs. ;)
 
Has there been any noticable difference between 1st and 2nd Generation with the new software?
 
Jaybird180 said:
Has there been any noticable difference between 1st and 2nd Generation with the new software?
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I don't know about what constitutes generations of Foreflight but this latest release makes it much more powerful as a navaid while inflight. You can now touch the map and it'll give you a list of all the objects near where you touched it. You can select, say a restricted area from the list and get the altitudes and freqs.
 
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Jaybird180 said:
Has there been any noticable difference between 1st and 2nd Generation with the new software?
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I assume you mean difference between the 1st and 2nd gen hardware?

Well, the iPad 2 is faster. Other than that, there's no difference between the two as it relates to ForeFlight.

If you're going to buy one now, I'd probably go for the iPad 2, simply because like all other computing devices, as new operating systems and software come out with new capabilities, they get slower. Based on my experience with the iPhone, I'm planning on alternating years. So, I'll get a new iPhone this year, new iPad next year, etc. and I think that'll keep me happy. If you get an iPad 1 now, you may find that iOS 5 or 6 makes it slower than you want. (There was a noticeable slowdown on the iPad 1 moving from iOS 3.2 to iOS 4.3.)

That said, you can save about $170 by buying a refurb iPad 1. If you want it to last, I suggest you go for the highest capacity and 3G which will set you back $659. I always go for the highest capacity because the longer it is 'til I fill it up, the longer I'll be happy with it.
 
bluesky74656 said:
I think he was talking about (and I would love to know) the difference between first and second gen iPads.
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The newer iPad is thinner, has a slightly different shape, has a dual-core A5 processor (probably better than 2x the speed of the original iPad), incorporates two pretty crappy cameras, has an internal magnet to hold the new covers on, and can be had in a version that works on Verizon's network.

Same screen resolution, same battery life, same available capacities, pretty much the same except for what I listed above.

I'm happy with the speed (for now), thickness (such as it is... It's a thicker very thin), AT&T network, and the only thing I'd use either of the cameras for is Skype.

But again, if I were buying one now, I'd get the iPad 2.
 
Jaybird180 said:
Has there been any noticable difference between 1st and 2nd Generation with the new software?
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I can't speak for the iPad 2 since I don't have one, but there are noticeable delays when switching between major screens (using the bottom buttons) with this latest update.

I'm chalking it up to "it's doing a lot more than it used to", but I dunno. Sometimes it "feels" to me after doing a lot of debugging over the years that proper priority wasn't given to the bottom-of-screen buttons to "interrupt" something going on.

Example might be, hit one of those buttons and switch to the "Map" for example... now the iPad is tied up drawing the map and doesn't really "react" to you pressing another bottom-of-screen button until it's done or close to done doing whatever you switched to.

Having had to deal with a lot of RTOS code that was custom-designed to allow certain functions to always have priority and/or be able to "interrupt" lesser priority stuff, I'd GUESS that there's no such check loop going on inside of the Foreflight code. That or they're just running out of cycles... or... Apple's API's don't really allow that level of process granularity without rolling your own, since you're at their mercy for when the screen press "event" arrives at your code in many ways.

An RTOS, iOS is most definitely NOT. So I am not too freaked out by the thing "locking up" for a bit when you ask it to do something. Unfortunately you might have pressed that Map button by accident in turbulence, and now you have to wait a few seconds to get to another screen you actually wanted...

I'm sure iPad 2 covers up this design limitation in the code a bit by just being flat out faster at everything. So I'd go iPad 2 for sure if you're wanting to keep it for a long time. I'll still keep and use the iPad 1 for a long time, but at least one other pilot pointed out to me that their resale value is high right now, and it'd be a good time to just bite the bullet for a couple hundred bucks and upgrade. Problem for me is... I already have the RAM Mount (and there's no iPad 2 RAM mount yet), and various other accessories. THOSE don't hold value well at all... so net-net... I'm better off staying with iPad 1 until it gets "too slow" to do the job.
 
denverpilot said:
I can't speak for the iPad 2 since I don't have one, but there are noticeable delays when switching between major screens (using the bottom buttons) with this latest update.

I'm chalking it up to "it's doing a lot more than it used to", but I dunno. Sometimes it "feels" to me after doing a lot of debugging over the years that proper priority wasn't given to the bottom-of-screen buttons to "interrupt" something going on.

Example might be, hit one of those buttons and switch to the "Map" for example... now the iPad is tied up drawing the map and doesn't really "react" to you pressing another bottom-of-screen button until it's done or close to done doing whatever you switched to.

Having had to deal with a lot of RTOS code that was custom-designed to allow certain functions to always have priority and/or be able to "interrupt" lesser priority stuff, I'd GUESS that there's no such check loop going on inside of the Foreflight code. That or they're just running out of cycles... or... Apple's API's don't really allow that level of process granularity without rolling your own, since you're at their mercy for when the screen press "event" arrives at your code in many ways.

An RTOS, iOS is most definitely NOT. So I am not too freaked out by the thing "locking up" for a bit when you ask it to do something. Unfortunately you might have pressed that Map button by accident in turbulence, and now you have to wait a few seconds to get to another screen you actually wanted...

I'm sure iPad 2 covers up this design limitation in the code a bit by just being flat out faster at everything. So I'd go iPad 2 for sure if you're wanting to keep it for a long time. I'll still keep and use the iPad 1 for a long time, but at least one other pilot pointed out to me that their resale value is high right now, and it'd be a good time to just bite the bullet for a couple hundred bucks and upgrade. Problem for me is... I already have the RAM Mount (and there's no iPad 2 RAM mount yet), and various other accessories. THOSE don't hold value well at all... so net-net... I'm better off staying with iPad 1 until it gets "too slow" to do the job.
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I've not tried to run FF on anything other than the iPad 2 and the 3GS iPhone but yes there is no delay noticeable with the faster processor in the iPad 2 compared to my 3GS phone.

And I have two different RAM clamps for my iPad 2 - the spring clamp for a iPad with case and the non locking clip type clamp for the iPad without the case. By "no iPad 2 RAM mount yet" I assume that you mean they haven't come out with one specifically designed for the thinner profile but I have to say that their little retrofit bumpers work perfectly fine :dunno:
 
My favorite airport list keeps losing airports, mostly recently added favorites. Has anyone else seen this happen?
 
Yellowbird said:
My favorite airport list keeps losing airports, mostly recently added favorites. Has anyone else seen this happen?
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Known issue, but they've only had a dozen or so reports rather than the hundreds they get with most problems, so it's been very hard to reproduce and find the cause. PLEASE send an e-mail to [email protected] with every detail you can remember about what you were doing before it happened - And what versions of iOS and ForeFlight you're running, what device you're running it on (iPhone 4, iPad 2, etc.).

And for my own curiosity, so I can try to find it too - Are they eventually coming back? The only time I've lost favorites is when I actually deleted and reinstalled FF (and of course it'll always happen then, unless they start storing them online somewhere as well) but then they're gone for good. It sounds like sometimes a reboot of the iPad or some other things might get it to work. That, and some of the other initial indications are that it might be an Apple problem and not a ForeFlight problem.
 
Dave Siciliano said:
I lost all favorites when I upgraded to OS to 4.01.
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I assume you mean ForeFlight, not iOS? (iOS 4.0.1 would be several months old and not run on iPad.) Or did you mean iOS 4.3.1? If the latter, have you upgraded to iOS 4.3.3 (the latest version)? Did your favorites come back? If you reboot, do they come back? (To reboot the iPad, hold down the power button until you get a red "slide to power off" on the screen, slide it, wait until the screen goes black, wait a few seconds, and press the power button for a second or so until the Apple logo shows up on the screen.)
 
flyingcheesehead said:
Known issue, but they've only had a dozen or so reports rather than the hundreds they get with most problems, so it's been very hard to reproduce and find the cause. PLEASE send an e-mail to [email protected] with every detail you can remember about what you were doing before it happened - And what versions of iOS and ForeFlight you're running, what device you're running it on (iPhone 4, iPad 2, etc.).

And for my own curiosity, so I can try to find it too - Are they eventually coming back? The only time I've lost favorites is when I actually deleted and reinstalled FF (and of course it'll always happen then, unless they start storing them online somewhere as well) but then they're gone for good. It sounds like sometimes a reboot of the iPad or some other things might get it to work. That, and some of the other initial indications are that it might be an Apple problem and not a ForeFlight problem.
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One feature I would like (maybe it exists and I just don't know about it :rofl: ) is syncing of favorites and perhaps a couple of other things between different devices on the same account e.g. between my iPad and iPhone. Maybe a toggle in settings to disable for those who don't want that to happen for some reason.
 
I also suggested two things to improve user interface:
1. Add "Rotate" button to taxi diagrams page. When iPad in landscape mode and you open taxi diagram it opens in portrait mode, takes very little of the screen real estate and hardly readable. To turn it you have to turn iPad to portrait mode but you can't do it if iPad mounted in yoke mount.
2. Add back and forward buttons and swipe left/right actions to Imagery. My typical scenario - I'm looking at current prognostic chart and next thing I almost always want to do is check 12 hours, 24, 36 and 48. And sometimes go back and forth to understand the trend. Now I have to press Close and pick next image.
 
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