Once a year, I give the iOS version of GP a chance (US market), but every time I come to the conclusion that the core functionality lacks finesse and level to detail. It starts with oversaturated colors for the moving map, tiny buttons and font sizes, sub optimal use of screen real estate, functionality hidden behind too many layers of sub menus, slow rendering performance, button click delays of several seconds. The list goes on and on. It’s surprising, because the UI of the GTN 750 is really good.
If Garmin would drop Android and focus on iOS, perhaps Garmin would stand a chance compared to ForeFlight.
On a slightly separated but related note, I am surprised that privacy loving Europeans love Android so much. It’s always good to re-watch the Dutch documentary
The fact that Facebook feels threatened by iOS 14 privacy features is proof that Apple is on the right track.
If Garmin would drop Android and focus on iOS, perhaps Garmin would stand a chance compared to ForeFlight.
I can’t see how that could possibly be true, for many reasons which have been done to death in many places here and elsewhere. Garmin is hardly resource limited when it comes to writing an app like this. The only issue is how much effort they allocate to it.
The video is a good rant but irrelevant to anything here.
Android is popular across much of the earth’s surface, for many reasons, starting with most of the hardware being much more affordable. It lags a long way behind IOS in GA usage (historically, GA apps have tended to be IOS only) but presumably Garmin have decided to continue with it for good reasons. And European VFR GA runs a lot on Android; there is less money here 
Very importantly, there are rugged Android tablets on the market, but no rugged iOS devices.
Peter wrote:
Garmin is hardly resource limited
Every software development team is extremely resource limited. Money is not the gating factor. Finding capable engineers is. This is particularly true for companies that operate out of regions that are not known for their software engineering innovation like Olathe in Kansas and Salem in Oregon, where Garmin is developing their aviation products. I will bet you that GP for Android is not going anywhere anytime soon.
there are rugged Android tablets on the market, but no rugged iOS devices
For which group of GA aviators does a rugged device matter?
The video is a good rant but irrelevant to anything here.
On the surface, it is not relevant, I agree. On a deeper level it, because by using Android you have made a Faustian bargain.
Lucius wrote:
For which group of GA aviators does a rugged device matter?
Mechanically rugged may not be so important (even though I’d strongly prefer it so). What is very important is not shutting down when heated by direct sunlight.
Once a year, I give the iOS version of FF a chance (European market), but every time I come to the conclusion that the core functionality lacks finesse and level to detail. It starts with the quirky non-Garmin user interface, unfamiliar buttons, sub optimal use of screen real estate, functionality hidden behind too many layers of sub menus, failure to transfer flight plans to the GTN navigators, failure to show smaller GA airfields and gliding sites, failure to show NOTAMS and active danger areas on the moving map, failure to load instrument approaches and vertical en-route flight planning… The list goes on and on.
Of course, I’ve been using GP for five years, so it’s hardly fair to compare app UI and features after trying FF for just a month or two.
On recent iOS hardware, I see no difference in performance, but it’s true that GP struggles a bit on old iPads, for instance when showing the Open Street Map.
Faustian bargain
That’s disingenuous. Nowadays, every device reports back on what you do. Android reports back to the Church of Google. IOS reports back to the Church of Jobs. Windows reports back to the Church of Bill. Etc. Telemetry is widely used in the industry. Microsoft uses it heavily. Google analytics (and other plug-ins) is everywhere, which is why the google stock in “your” pension fund is doing so well. Google delivers a useful service, in a world where almost nobody reads printed media anymore.
Do I give a damn about all the telemetry? No. Practically nobody does.
Every software development team is extremely resource limited. Money is not the gating factor. Finding capable engineers is. This is particularly true for companies that operate out of regions that are not known for their software engineering innovation like Olathe in Kansas and Salem in Oregon, where Garmin is developing their aviation products. I will bet you that GP for Android is not going anywhere anytime soon.
Software can be developed anywhere, and there isn’t much software in these satnav apps. One of the market leading VFR apps over this side of the pond was written entirely by 1 person. Also there are now frameworks for generating android and ios apps from the same sources.
Anyway this is totally irrelevant to Garmin Pilot, whatever it is running on. If Garmin choose to support Android, they will sell more than if they don’t, and additionally GP is useful as an interface to Garmin avionics.
Getting back to GA my preference would be for a “flying tablet” to be dedicated to flying, so that I don’t turn up to fly one day and find it’s been trashed, perhaps by some OS update I did which broke something, which can’t be fixed in the 15 mins before my filed EOBT.
As far as anyone can tell, all Ipads will shut down in direct sunlight in the summer. With Android, you can get lower power tablets which don’t do this. Whether they have enough power to run the latest versions of these apps, is another matter…
Peter wrote:
Also there are now frameworks for generating android and ios apps from the same sources.
Which are usually bad in particular area you need like handling device specific resources (GPS, Bluetooth, biometrics and similar).
Have flown running 2x ipad (1 with GP for me, 1 with SD for wife, in scorching sunlight at about 36 to 37 deg c on 4 or 5 occations without a shutdown.
However a) I never load anything else on them, and b) I usually start with them fully charged and avoid charging in flight. I reckon starting fully charged and leaving the charger as ‘top-up’ might be ok in those extremes, but haven’t tried.
GP burns the battery at approximately 2x the rate of SD for some reason, despite playing with screen brightness which is a major factor.
I am in the Android camp usually but having always, and will always have Android phones and android tablets, I have to grudgingly admit that I definitely feel an IPad runs smoother and never appears to glitch or do something uncommanded as a ‘perceived’ input.
Typing on an ipad screen is usually better than Android in my opinion.
When using Garmin Pilot I have to say I can’t imagine that it would feel as slick as it does on my Ipad.
Peter wrote:
Nowadays, every device reports back on what you do.
There is a huge difference, whether a device reports back for the purpose of identifying bugs, or with the intent of profiling you, so your emotional state can be exploited. Android was invented for the purpose of profiling and stocking you, hence free.
I actually would prefer GP over FF (on iOS), because I have a GTN-750 with FlightStream 510 and it requires a paid GP subscription for the database Concierge. I tried GP three months ago, but the performance on my iPad 4 Mini with maxed out memory was too slow and there was a noticeable lag on almost any button click and letter I typed and map rendering was awful, like map tiles rendering one after another. FF runs smoothly on the same device. I had completely reset my iPad to factory settings prior to installing GP to eliminate other possible side effect, like fragmentation, but to no avail. It is possible that Garmin uses one of those write-once-run-everywhere cross platform framework, which are usually only used for prototyping. If they do, then Garmin may have architected themselves into a corner.
I am willing to learn a different UI, and I think the GP UI paradigm may be fine, but I have a hard time with the poor rendering performance and noticeable lag when clicking buttons. It has to be snappy for me.
