If I buy an ipad, how long before it becomes obsolete?

Wish they made a pro mini size
 
With ForeFlight your bigger challenge is the iOS version required to run it the latest release - I think the min requirement now is 9.2, which automatically rules out some of the older devices.

Garmin is 9.0, WingxX 8.0 and FlyQ 8.0
 
Skipping two pages of replies: if you buy any computer, it was already obsolete before it reached the store. It's replacement is already being made, and the replacement for that one is in the final stages of development. Ever since I figured that out, I've not bought behind the curve, and have had great useful lives. One desktop made it over eight years before it became too kludgy. My current iPad mini retina that I'm using right now is 99% full (my 150+ books may have something to do with that . . . ), and it turned three years old at Christmas.
 
rk911 said:
not quite sure what you mean by 'obsolete'.
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When Foreflight lags and runs so slow it literally becomes unsafe to use while in the air. Or to the point where it no longer runs at all.
 
Ryan F. said:
If you buy an older model you're already going to be timing out early.



One way or another you'll be upgrading the hardware on some kind of cycle; I prefer to keep the hardware longer and upgrade less often, so I buy the newest product out there and get plenty of storage so it doesn't get painful to use. QUOTE]
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Exactly why I plan to get the latest and greatest
 
Ipads are cheap. If you buy an EFIS, how long before it becomes obsolete?
 
It's obsolete by the time the first unit ships.
 
Hank S said:
Skipping two pages of replies: if you buy any computer, it was already obsolete before it reached the store. It's replacement is already being made, and the replacement for that one is in the final stages of development. Ever since I figured that out, I've not bought behind the curve, and have had great useful lives. One desktop made it over eight years before it became too kludgy. My current iPad mini retina that I'm using right now is 99% full (my 150+ books may have something to do with that . . . ), and it turned three years old at Christmas.
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I've gone back and forth on this. I've bought the latest and greatest and I've bought behind the curve. In both cases it's been on the same basic theory. It's worked out very well over the course of almost 30 years as the pace of hardware requirements accelerated, flattened, accelerated, flattened, etc, etc. I've made lucky guesses.
 
midwestpa24 said:
I've been wondering this question lately myself. I have been happy using a Samsung tablet, but if I proceed much further into the commercial realm I will need FF. I've been looking at the Ipad Mini 4, but have thought of holding off until the next is released. I've heard rumor we may see something yet this year.
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Here's a good site for helping to decide if you should buy the current Apple device or wait a few months... http://buyersguide.macrumors.com/. It gives when the next models are expected.
 
I still have (as we joke in my family) the Ipad zero. Only use it for maps, it has a GPS chip and will show position eventually. FF still runs on it just fine. I stopped using MS-DOS 3.3 and WordStar:eek: on the home computer
 
All electronic chart wise. IF LIMITED to ForeFlight, a 16GB is probably OK. I have two minis. One Primary, the latest version, one older, the backup, an earlier version. I can't tell the difference in using either of them. I recommend getting the Cellular version so you can use the maps on ForeFlight if the Stratus craps out on you. I also carry an external battery pack that will fully charge up an iPad. These are cheap on Amazon.
 
WannFly said:
Just FYI, if u are not updating to the latest version, you are opening yourself to zero day attacks. Albeit less prevalent on ios devices, still there. If u don't update, do yourself a favor and don't do mobile banking from it.
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A nitpick. *Everyone* is vulnerable to "zero-day" exploits. Updates are always zero-day plus something. :)

Plus there's tons vulnerabilities that are known by a few and kept secret until the manufacturer's folks can write patches.

Software engineering is utter crap nowadays.

The critical thought here is that keeping up with patches protects you from the known stuff that can be easily copied and used by lots of bad guys. But it doesn't protect you from the new stuff constantly being found.

AND... software engineering being what it is, the vast majority of these problems are just people writing the same mistakes into code over and over and over. They'll patch the buffer overflows they found today, and the rest of the department wrote four more while they were making the patch. LOL.

A friend wrote a white paper in security about direct memory access being a massive security hole in USB, FireWire, all sorts of I/O ports, and demonstrated attacks with same, clear back in the mid 90s. It's still a problem today.

James331 said:
Wish they made a pro mini size
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We all do. :) The mini was the perfect size.
 
BillyBH said:
All electronic chart wise. IF LIMITED to ForeFlight, a 16GB is probably OK. I have two minis. One Primary, the latest version, one older, the backup, an earlier version. I can't tell the difference in using either of them. I recommend getting the Cellular version so you can use the maps on ForeFlight if the Stratus craps out on you. I also carry an external battery pack that will fully charge up an iPad. These are cheap on Amazon.
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Would this package do 2 hours? my kidneys won't.
 
My late wife bought my IPad 3 as a Christmas gift in December 2011. I have run Foreflight on it ever since and am typing this message on it right now. The fake leather case that it sets in to keep from slipping off my lap is pretty shot, but the IPad is still getting the job done quite well.

Hope this helps.
 
DMD3. said:
If I purchase a new ipad for the sole purpose of using Foreflight and nothing else (no web-surfing, no downloading music/videos, etc.)...
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A different way to think about this. I find that on most plane trips an iPad (with a $30 keyboard case) obviates the need to bring along a laptop, it's possible that's worth something to you.

Whatever you do, make sure you get the cellular iPad: GPS even if you don't pay for a data plan, and an extremely useful flight planner / communication device when you do. Besides Foreflight, I use it to locate mogas, restaurants and camping on airport as well as find/book hotels nearby.

I'm still using a 3+ yr. old iPad air, no issues, but I did get enough memory.
 
Here' my Pirep for an iPad 2, purchased in 2011 with 32 GB, together with the original Bad-Elf GPS. I ran WingX with no problem until 2013, then switched to Garmin Pilot to interface with my Garmin GDL-88 ADS-B. Both of these applications have run great, right up to the present day. However, I very occasionally had a crash using WingX, which is annoying in IFR conditions. Garmin Pilot has always and the Bad-Elf GPS have always worked perfectly.

The situation has not been as sanguinary with the Safari browser, however. My wireless Internet runs slowly and often crashes with the "latest" S/W update, which I use to keep the antivirus up-to-date. I believe this is because of all the bloatware ads imbedded in many websites. For example, www.aviationweather.gov is neither slow nor does it crash, while www.weather.com is terrible.

Finally, I have a question: my iPad 2 has a reflective, glare-filled screen that is nearly washed out in direct sunlight (but great when in the shade). Is there an overlay for the screen that might cut down the glare?

Don
 
The OS upgrades and planned obsolesce are why I was sticking with Android tablets. Even if the goog decides to stop porting the latest OS to the tablet I have, there's a large community of developers that create OS updates for them. Just loaded the latest cyanogen mod on my Nexus 10.
http://www.androidcentral.com/cyanogen

That being said, it still looks like all the latest updates for gamin pilot are on IOS only for now. Android doesn't get the W&B calc and other features. I sent them an email about it, and they have no date for when those features will be ported over. I'll be looking for a different app when my current pilot subscription runs out as I don't want to get into the apple mess.
 
This thread inspired me to downgrade my nexus 7(2012 version) to android 4.x from 5.x, it was almost unusable with the newer OS rev. Its back to being usable again!
 
UngaWunga said:
The OS upgrades and planned obsolesce are why I was sticking with Android tablets.
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Which specific model of Android tablet?

It's not like you can walk into Best Buy, choose the Android device you like best and expect any support. Many big name manufacturers such as Lenovo and Samsung won't provide any OS upgrades for certain models. I picked up a Lenovo, which would have been perfect for Pilot with a battery life of over 12 hours - no upgrades. After promising upgrades that were "coming soon" for a year, they came out with a new policy of "if you want a new OS, buy a new tablet". If that's not "planned obsolesce" I don't know what is. Samsung is no better, they're still selling new tablets that are on 4.4, which is what, three years old?

Android fans are like Linux fans, always having to make an excuse. "Oh, see, you bought the wrong tablet, that's why it doesn't work, isn't supported, etc.." Cyanogen mod might be an option, if your choice of device is supported by them. All you need to do is root this, hack that, check if minor things like the touch screen still work, roll back, try this, try that - it defeats the whole purpose of having a tablet. Then you get to choose between crippled software, like Pilot (android), or a second tier choice. But, hey, if getting an extra year or two out of it is worth all that, more power to you.
 
tyndall said:
But, hey, if getting an extra year or two out of it is worth all that, more power to you.
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I try to explain this to people from time to time and it's just too exhausting. Thanks for going to the trouble. I'm not an Apple fanboi, I just like stuff that works and doesn't require extra effort from me. I have too many other obligations on my time, than to fight with my technology.
 
tyndall said:
Which specific model of Android tablet?
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Nexus 10. Bought it a few years ago. I agree, they all keep pushing the latest/greatest. No real reason for it, other than Apple and others need to keep sales up to keep their stock price inflated.

buy them from the goog, and there's no vendor bloatware on them. They're pushing this $600 model as the new thing for android. Little hard to swallow when I bought the nexus10 for $100 used.
https://store.google.com/product/pixel_c

Rooting an android tablet is pretty easy these days. Took me an hour. I'll keep it until the community stops putting out mods for it.
 
I don't think anyone has mentioned battery capacity yet. As the iPad's age, it seems the battery has less life. this does not mean the iPad is obsolete, just that you will need external power sooner.
 
denverpilot said:
CyanogenMod is dead. Long live LineageOS.

While it's hideously disruptive, thank goodness open source projects can fork when the leadership goes insane.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/CyanogenMod
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Quite right. And when I was 22 years old and contributing to open source software, I had time for all that. I wish I still did actually. But I don't anymore. Apple isn't flawless but I've never felt terribly compelled to install software on my iPad or iPhone other than through official channels.
 
UngaWunga said:
Nexus 10. Bought it a few years ago. I agree, they all keep pushing the latest/greatest. No real reason for it, other than Apple and others need to keep sales up to keep their stock price inflated.

buy them from the goog, and there's no vendor bloatware on them. They're pushing this $600 model as the new thing for android. Little hard to swallow when I bought the nexus10 for $100 used.
https://store.google.com/product/pixel_c

Rooting an android tablet is pretty easy these days. Took me an hour. I'll keep it until the community stops putting out mods for it.
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Yea, I like the vanilla android you get with Nexus, it was pretty simple for me to flash the 4.4.4 over the 5.1.1 with the downloads provided by google. There is a good argument for declining the OS rev updates, the hardware was designed to run version x, version x+1, not so much, then version x+2, you're straining to idle.
 
iamtheari said:
Quite right. And when I was 22 years old and contributing to open source software, I had time for all that. I wish I still did actually. But I don't anymore. Apple isn't flawless but I've never felt terribly compelled to install software on my iPad or iPhone other than through official channels.
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I'll go either way. When the commercial kids are customer focused, their stuff is great. Apple isn't customer focused right now, their leader is busy making political hay instead of good products, worth their hefty markup.

Cook is just John Scully in a PC wrapper as far as the business side of Apple goes. He's going to keep screwing it up.
 
iamtheari said:
Quite right. And when I was 22 years old and contributing to open source software, I had time for all that. I wish I still did actually. But I don't anymore. Apple isn't flawless but I've never felt terribly compelled to install software on my iPad or iPhone other than through official channels.
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I'm only doing it to get the latest OS, in hope that it'll let me get the latest Garmin Pilot updates.
 
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