You’re not wrong. But my point really was that different folks have folks have different requirements. In the extreme the strip flyer who never leaves the circuit doesn’t even that.
I think it’s a chicken and egg kind of thing. People use these apps for what they are good at. All of them are good at the core moving map or chartplotter functionality. There are more differences in how good they are at more “upstream” functionality like fetching information about smaller fields for instance. So you end up using other sources of information, and use these apps only as a “moving map”, even though they can be used (in theory at least) for much more than that.
I would also recommend you look at Sky Map (www.sky-map.de) – this is an excellent piece of software which can be used in conjunction with Flight Planner – so you plan your flights on the computer (and export via internet to your device) or tablet, get flight plan formulas / AIPs printed out, check weather, NOTAMs, weight and Balance all within one program – I am so pleased with it, I feel it’s a pity it’s not widely marketed beyond Germany….
I have been using Sky Map for a few years and was quite pleased with it, very stable platform and an excellent support.
I have switched to SkyDemon since as nowadays Sky Map does not offer a lot of functionality over and above other tools and has a few downsides, especially their pricing structure for maps and plates. One has to spend in excess of EUR 500 p.a. solely to have current maps for Europe. IIRC, the maps are also only updated once a year in line with the paper versions.
SkyMap is the product which used to offer the Jepp VFR charts, but these were dropped in 2013 (as was their electronic version for FliteStar, called Raster Charts).
Jepp reportedly wanted a few hundred € a year for licensing those.
So I wonder what charts they offer now? UK, France, Germany, Switzerland and 1 or 2 others have “reasonable” VFR charts which exist in a raster format – example.
If you are into raster charts (single layer non-rotating VFR charts) then you can do what I do: Oziexplorer. It is much cheaper than any of the aviation products. But I would not recommend that for general use because it relies on having “means” to get the data. Also I never found any practical way to get airway (pure IFR) maps for Ozi.
Sky Map offers the national ICAO-charts and the ICAO-charts which DFS produces for Germany and some other countries bordering Germany (Denmark, Belgium , Austria etc.).
I think the most important difference between SKYDEMON and SKYMAP or FLYMAP is that Skydemon uses vectorized maps which load quicker – and look the same for all of Europe. Of course updates are easier too. If you buy AIR NAV PRO or one of the above with raster maps you are stuck with that version of the map for a year. Not so with Skydemon.
SkyDemon is not, I believe, the only one to use vectorised maps, rather than rasterised ones. I’ve asked them to participate but so far haven’t had a response. They have a free trial but it does mention that it has some restrictions and I wouldn’t want to be comparing it with those, at least unless it’s obvious that they’re restrictions of the free trial. Hopefully they’ll come back to me soon.
AFAIK only two products that are usable in flight have European vector charts: PocketFMS and Skydemon.
There is also Navbox and Navbox Pro, which I use for my adhoc VFR and for looking up airport data, but while that does have a moving map GPS mode, it is IMHO not suitable for in-flight use due to the bare chart representation. And the charts are only north-up. The database is maintained but the app has not been updated significantly for about 10 years.
Before 2005, with machine readable airspace and airfield data coming freely from DAFIF, there were various US based ones but the termination of public access to DAFIF (a highly cynical action by non-US CAAs) killed them off.
Sky Map offers the national ICAO-charts and the ICAO-charts which DFS produces for Germany and some other countries bordering Germany (Denmark, Belgium , Austria etc.).
That sounds like a big restriction from its former coverage, and I am surprised they still charge so much. Especially as most of those charts can be, ahem, downloaded for free and used with Oziexplorer 
I guess the map copyright holders want a lot of money.
It’s a pretty fast moving field. That’s the exact reason I want to get all the players on the table and see what provides what. Data source, coverage and reliability of data is an important factor to consider for each product.
Also I don’t want to rule anyone out on the basis of coverage – for lots (most?) people coverage isn’t a big issue if the product covers where they fly. Not everyone flies from one end of Europe to the other.
I’m leaving off downloading torrent of copyright infringed maps. The option is there for those that want to take it.
There is a new kid on the block who is promising a very reasonable price for the whole of europe (€ 135,- per year).
this includes plates and the whole etc.
It lookes very impressive.
Europe should become available this summer.
