Garmins iPad competitor

Hey, it's ONLY $2,500! And subscriptions of $200 or $500. I can see it killing the iPad. Where do I sign up? And can I sign up on my iPad?

No thanks. I'll keep Foreflight.
 
Garmin knows XM WX is coming on the iPad and is squeezing the grape as hard as they can, one last time.
 
Good. Glad to see we are on the same page. As soon as I saw that, my jaw hit the floor. I couldn't believe they were bold enough to put that up as an iPad killer when it doesn't even "really" compare.
 
It looks like a fine standalone GPS and a nice alternative to the 696. But an iPad killer, it ain't.

It will appeal to people who want all the GPS/XM integration done well, and don't want to put up with any of the "integration" responsibilities that users of computers do (is the problem a foreflight bug, an apple bug, a badelf problem, for instance) and are willing to pay the hefty price premium.

I see this as being something that regulated operators like 121/135 guys might find easier to get approved for use as an EFB, compared to an iPad. For example, you don't have to figure out how to lock the Garmin down from a configuration management standpoint and prevent the crew from playing Angry Birds on it.
 
It looks sweet to me and id take it over an iPad since I would have no use for an iPad other than running aviation software on it. Its about 1500 bucks to expensive but, I could get over that if the update prices weren't just ridiculous, even in aviation dollars. Put me in the column of "Didn't buy because of database update prices"
 
TMetzinger said:
I see this as being something that regulated operators like 121/135 guys might find easier to get approved for use as an EFB, compared to an iPad. For example, you don't have to figure out how to lock the Garmin down from a configuration management standpoint and prevent the crew from playing Angry Birds on it.
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United/Continental just announced they got iPad's approved (I assume with JeppView), and are buying 7000 of them. I don't think there's much of a "benefit" to a device being single-purpose for Garmin anymore.
 
I think the horse has left the barn on this one. Garmin makes great stuff, but at a premium price that is getting increasingly difficult to defend. While I bought the iPad for aviation purposes, it has since found many additional uses outside the cockpit....and I find myself using it throughout the day every day. It's a great tool, with amazing battery life.
 
If I had money today and was in the market for an aviation GPS...... I'd probably buy it.

Foreflight is a great planning tool, cockpit reference........but the iPad is NOT a reliable GPS for navigation purposes. In a pinch, you could use it......but as a primary, nope.

The Garmin is not an iPad killer, but it is a nice tablet-like GPS to be used with the iPad.
 
LDJones said:
I think the horse has left the barn on this one. Garmin makes great stuff, but at a premium price that is getting increasingly difficult to defend. While I bought the iPad for aviation purposes, it has since found many additional uses outside the cockpit....and I find myself using it throughout the day every day. It's a great tool, with amazing battery life.
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Or as someone said over on AOPA, 3x the price and 4x or 5x the subscription cost to keep data current.

I concur with defending the premium price. With no data it's difficult to concpetualize the cost to manufacture and have ready in the box to distribute and their profit margins.

If they could get the price point down by 1 AMU, They would likely have the same run on sales like Apple has experienced for the iPad 2.
 
Something I'd like to see on a product like this....

Ability to tie back into a Garmin GNS and then "remote control" something like frequency selection.

So if I was looking at airport data on the 796 and wanted select the tower frequency, I could touch-hold the info, get a FF-like popup saying "Load frequency?" and saying yes would put it into the standby on the GNS 430/530 or GTN.

Juss saying
 
TripleZ said:
Foreflight is a great planning tool, cockpit reference........but the iPad is NOT a reliable GPS for navigation purposes. In a pinch, you could use it......but as a primary, nope.
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I can't find any engineering reason to claim the iPad GPS is any more or less accurate over a Garmin.

VFR, both devices are secondary -- looking at the window at proper landmarks with a stopwatch, is primary.

IFR, neither are certified.

Please define "not as reliable a GPS" and the data utilized to come to that conclusion. That's very vague.

You also disregard the bluetooth and hard-wired add-on GPS options for iPad. Those provide alternatives to fix the perceived accuracy issue, do they not? They're incredibly cheap compared to the price delta of the Garmin.

A fully loaded 3G iPad plus external GPS is something close to $1000 lower priced than this new Garmin.

I can't find a value proposition that fills a $1000 gap. XM WX certainly, but not for $1000.

We'll see what the pricing is on the iPad for the XM hardware. It's supposedly coming, according to the official Foreflight release notes.

Subscription for XM is going to be the same. Garmin's update and chart subs are significantly higher than FF.

I see this new device as Garmin's attempt to morph into the "luxury" brand just prior to losing the entire low-cost end of their market sector.

Some people will always buy Garmin over anything else. Just like some people will buy Lexus over Toyota, even though they're assembled on the same line in Kentucky... and one has shiny chrome badges... they both do the same thing.

I think Garmin is moving heavily into brand based Marketing, and rapidly watching their tech lead dwindle.

I also see the ability to whip out my Phone and have a second copy of an almost identical version of Foreflight as a backup device for no additional cost, as a *huge* win for iOS.

Android solutions may be similar, with their tablets and phones... I don't know on that one.

I can't whip out a Garmin phone out of my pocket as a backup. That's a huge loss on Garmin's side. I feel, anyway...
 
Actualy, the XM weather pretty much is around 700-1000 as an add-on to ANYTHING, when purchased new.

I've flown with tablets for years, and always wanted XM WX. WXworx reciever with serial cable back then? = 1 AMU
WxWorx with Bluetooth now? Still about 1 AMU.

What gets me mad about XM WX is that the receiver is NOT that expensive - look at the XM audio receivers for less than 100.00. It's just a different digital datastream to parse and pass out to the display unit for interpretation.

In my frustration, I looked at an ADS-B datalink to get the uplinks of weather.... 1 AMU.


AMU=Aviation Monetary Unit=$1000.00
 
denverpilot said:
I can't find any engineering reason to claim the iPad GPS is any more or less accurate over a Garmin.

VFR, both devices are secondary -- looking at the window at proper landmarks with a stopwatch, is primary.

IFR, neither are certified.

Please define "not as reliable a GPS" and the data utilized to come to that conclusion. That's very vague.

You also disregard the bluetooth and hard-wired add-on GPS options for iPad. Those provide alternatives to fix the perceived accuracy issue, do they not? They're incredibly cheap compared to the price delta of the Garmin.
Click to expand...

I was speaking more to the stability of the software, than the accuracy of the GPS. From my own experience, my Garmin GPS is much more stable (Never had it fail, lock-up, crash, loose the route). However, I have had the iPad crash. Ive had Foreflight glitch and crash. Ive had the iPad iOS glitch and lock up.......... which required a hard restart, and eventually a restore.

I have no reason to believe the accuracy between the iPad and Garmin are different with full signal strength. However, just by design, where GPS is a secondary function on the iPad (built-in) the Garmin should beat it in terms of the receiver.

The bluetooth GPS units should be as good as the Garmin...... no argument there.


I love using my iPad in the cockpit...... so don't get me wrong. But when people start talking about flying paperless (iPad or Garmin GPS)....... which would you fly with...... if you had no paper charts with you?
 
TripleZ said:
I love using my iPad in the cockpit...... so don't get me wrong. But when people start talking about flying paperless (iPad or Garmin GPS)....... which would you fly with...... if you had no paper charts with you?
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I don't know that I'll ever 100% not have a paper chart handy on long flights outside the local area, but that's just me needing my safety blankie -- I'm already down to just the iPad with the iPhone as backup on local flights.

Doesn't bother me at all... paper chart replacement is exactly what FF was designed for, after all. If the GPS gets wonky, I know where to kill it in the OS settings...

As far as the long out-of-area flights, I'm usually just tossing a printed out copy of a "strip chart" Sectional for X number of miles either side of the intended course line in the back seat, and never pulling it out, so far. I only buy a "real" chart if I'm being extra lazy and don't feel like making a book from the laser printer.

That and I always print taxi diagrams just 'cause being lost on airports is really retarded. Nice that those are easily accessible in FF now.

Even though I'm not IR, I usually print one approach out... mainly as an "OMFG!" total emergency backup, but in practice, it usually ends up getting used just to dial in the ILS frequency just to make sure the nav toys are still working... if I ever even reach for the book at all.

The paper chart book is usually just back there behind the seat as my "ooh having paper on board makes me feel warm and fuzzy" safety blanket these days.

I'm totally fine with iPad as primary for charts, and iPhone as backup.
 
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