The latest version of GP (11.1.4) has added “generic GDL90 device support” so it now seems to work with PilotAware. I haven’t tried it in flight yet, but it shows commercial traffic from my hangar.
I recently added an iPad Pro (the smaller one, with 11” screen) to my panel. With Garmin Pilot it acts as an MFD for the G3X PFD and G5 – at about a tenth of the cost of a second GDL460.
So far, I’m happy with it.
I will probably add an iPad mini with SkyDemon on the right hand side of the panel for pax to play with.
My Ipad 4 was lagging a bit when running Garmin pilot, but fine with SD.
I do like Garmin pilot for IFR, due to panel sync (already discussed much before)
Anyhoo despite all upgrades/updates I was frustrated with the lag.
I purchased the latest Ipad and reloaded GP.
The version looks slightly different in appearance and airspace is much clearer.
It’s now silky smooth and there are pop up and permanent views of Lars and area frequencies.
It now seems to do AIP instrument approach geo-ref overlays from France, which my old one didn’t.
Seems a good improvement to me.
Perhaps there was a reason that despite my efforts this version would not display correctly on my 4yr old Ipad.
FWIW, IOS and OSX devices probably form 50% of forum visitors, based on this
Peter wrote:
Easily the case where they sell 99% of their products: the US The GA scene there is almost 100% IOS, partly because Apple are there and “own the world of style”, android is the “poor man’s OS in most of the world”, most pilots there have plenty of money, and since app devs write mostly for IOS, you get a full circle.In Europe, there is much less wealth in GA, many/most renters will not fly at all unless they can cost-share, and android products are popular – as they are in poor countries.
The GA scene, especially in the US is so much into iOS and Apple products in general because pilots tend to be more snobbish and just choose products that they percieve as more fit for their “status” in society. Apple has always been a symbol of wealth because of their style and deliberately overpriced products. Just like parking your Tesla in front of Starbucks, but let’s not go into that… :)
Android on the other hand, just works well (I would say equally well, just look at the latest flagship phones), but for less money. It’s just less “cool” to own an android device. As for tablets, that’s true, for some strange reason Google has abandoned that segment a long time ago, giving basically a monopoly for Apple there for their iPads. But I heard there will be a comeback and a new Google Pixel tablet is coming with high-end performance… So we’ll see.
As for myself, I use an Android ecosystem and just for the sake of flight navigation I did not want to get an iPad, so I use a Lenovo android tablet (its size is almost equal to an Ipad mini, convenient with accessories) which works well, although a bit sluggish as it does not have the latest CPU…
But to get to Garmin Pilot, I am now running its trial version and am quite unimpressed…
Compared to SkyDemon:
- no frequencies shown at a particular point on the map (only a list at airports, but not showing which sector has which freq) and absolutely no info on en-route frequencies for flight information services … (this is a deal breaker for me)
- search function on map does not allow looking up local landmarks (towns, lakes etc…), which is sometimes useful when ATC directs you toward one for some reason and you are not familiar with the area
- no desktop app for pre-flight planning on your computer (not a huge issue, but would be nice to have)
- no smart airspace function
So I think I’ll stay with SkyDemon.
I can just confirm the amount of devices, I am doing just that (2 iPads and 1 iPhone), for Northern Europe (254euro + vat). Interesting definition of Northern Europe, it goes all the way to Paris and include UK (via ForeFlight)
As far as I remember it is 3 devices (limited to firelight on these devices) with at least one of those three being an iPhone – so at max. 2 tablets.
Coverage map according to their website is :
Do you have a coverage map for that €522?
How many devices can that be on?
Peter wrote:
Then about 10 years ago Jepp brought out a ~€900 package, single device only.The pricing never changed much no matter how you shake it
It actually did – Jeppesen Charts for forelight all Europe IFR and VFR are “only” 522 EUR – so just half of the price of the respective subscription to use with Garmin Pilot.
We’ve had many threads on Jepp pricing and packages 
Basically since for ever it was always €2k or so for the four-device subscription, for “political Europe” – basically what normal people call Europe. IIRC it included Russia up to the Urals, though that has now been terminated 
Then about 10 years ago Jepp brought out a ~€900 package, single device only.
The pricing never changed much no matter how you shake it. I think in some cases you could get two devices for the money if one was an Ipad and one a panel mount device, but I am not at all sure. Again, various threads. Jepp never did any Android product licensing; they told me this is because they are too easy to bootleg, which is why the Android version of Garmin Pilot has no Jepp option.
It’s expensive…
