While it's been disappointing to learn that carrying around two smart phones does not make a guy extra smart, I am incredibly happy about owning that Verizon Droid Incredible at left. It's not a phone I'd recommend to everyone -- and Android marine apps certainly aren't much yet -- but given what I want from it, and where I live, the Incredible makes that iPhone 3GS seem feeble and limited. I feel like I just got out of Apple/AT&T jail, and I'm shaking my head because I liked it in there! Let's begin with the built-in GPS and motion sensors...
It's so sad: Nowadays when I contemplate my amazing portfolio of iPhone marine apps (discussed here, here, here, and elsewhere) in iTunes, featured right across the top of my PC screen are the ones now also optimized for the iPad. But I don't have an iPad (though I did touch one). And behold the difference. The size of what you see when you click on the image above will depend on your particular screen's pixels per inch, but the proportions are right regardless. iNavX on a 9.7-inch, 1024 x 748 pixel iPad is obviously quite different from iNavX on a 3.5-inch, 320 x 480 pixel iPhone. There's room for more chart and bigger touch buttons, not to mention nav data and a compass ribbon across the top. Damn...
Competitive heat is really building in the portable global sat phone/messenger sector, and once it gets sorted, it's got to be good news for those of us who venture beyond cellular networks. Last week Iridium announced that its smaller, cheaper 9602 SBD modem is ready ahead of schedule for some 90 "integration partners," and a few weeks before that Inmarsat detailed its IsatPhone Pro (due in June), including its game changing pricing. And while I discussed both of these developments here in January, it's Globalstar that may be the long term dark horse in this race...
Today Garmin introduced the GPSMap 78 series, an apparently major refresh of the 76 series long popular with boaters. While I only got to fiddle with a pre-production unit for a moment, I did learn a lot about the industrial design process behind it. The ID department in Olathe -- aka "The Skunk Works" or "Area 51" -- has a tool collection that would make all sorts of craftsmen and artists drool, but I'll save that story for another day. What's particularly notable about the exhibit shown above and below is how many design iterations were created and modeled for the 78, and how detailed they were...
Honest, it was purely coincidental that I booked a hotel room in Boston that's three blocks from an Apple mega store. But, sure, we checked out the iPad opening day phenomenon, and the scene was actually impressive. Out on the sidewalk, happy new owners showed them off to friends and the media, while others waited in lines to pick up preordered units or to place orders. Inside iPad classes were underway and images of new iPad apps lined all three floors. Most important, there were lots of iPads online, loaded with apps, and easy to try out as long as you wanted, and they are nifty (as you can read in umpteen places). But the abundant and generally well informed staff were not able to answer my main question, which, in fact, has become my to-buy-or-not-buy line in the sand...
Ah, so there you are stretched out in a teak chaise on the skydeck of your mega, but are you bored and/or uncomfortably out of touch? Hell no, not with an iPad full of books, videos, games, work tools, internet connectivity, and even an app that connects you directly into your elaborate InteliSea vessel monitoring and control system. There's a nice demo of their existing $99 iPhone app at the InteliSea site, and I can tell you from on-phone testing that it manages complexities like those mimic screens above better than demoed, but won't this app shine on the iPad? And if you're a geek, or the yacht's engineer...
"Gaumy" is great Maine word for something kind of messy or awkward (there are numerous spellings), and it came to mind when I tested the Dry Case above. Its various doodads and fairly large size almost completely suck the elegant simplicity right out of an iPhone or an iPod Touch. However, because you can easily suck the air out of the case, it's not only exceptionally waterproof, but the screen and even the iPhone camera, still work fine, which is more than can be said for the Otter Case also discussed after the break...
Jeff Siegel of Active Captain (discussed here recently) is the first developer to submit a mock-up showing what his software might look like on an iPad (in response to my challenge), and it's so intriguing it deserves a quickie entry. It hadn't even occurred to me that POIs could be neatly listed in the order a cruiser would encounter them along a given route. They can be filtered, too; in this case only marinas offering special deals are showing. I believe those deals are examples of the co-op advertising AC mentioned in their recent newsletter, and they look like a win-win thing to me. Altogether, the Active Captain Companion app, which will likely be free, sure looks like a good use of the iPad's portability, connectivity, screen size, and extra interface options. Jeff plans something similar for Android phones and tablets using the Layar environment. I'm hoping we'll see more marine mock-ups for all these platforms.
I think it's safe to presume that Navionics Mobile Marine is the best selling iPhone charting app in the U.S. and many other countries. In fact, as I just wrote in an April Yachting article, many iPhone boaters consider it a "no brainer" even if they also use other nav apps. But lookee here, they've rebuilt the entire thing, substantially improving both features and value. Today you can buy the US East Marine and East Lakes versions for $10 each, a steal really, but they are 166 and 535 megabyte files, which is a bit of an inefficient pain for all concerned. By contrast, the new $10 Marine&Lakes:US will be an easily updated 2 MB because it doesn't come with data. BUT you'll be able to download charts and lake maps for anywhere in the entire U.S., quite easily, and fresh direct from Navionics' own servers. The greedy download illustrated above -- note the chart and POI detail of Newport -- took about 10 minutes via my home WiFi network, and a much smaller download went fine even over AT&T's poky Edge service. And there's more...
The tidal wave of interesting iPhone boating apps rolls on! The screen at left above (click for bigger) shows a beta version of Memory Map's upcoming charting app and I can tell you that it already handles NOAA raster charts and topo maps with speed and smoothness I didn't think possible on plain 3G hardware. At middle is the brand new Ships Ahoy!, a $3 AR (augmented reality) relative to Ship Finder and the other AIS viewers that lets you just point an iPhone 3Gs (you need the compass) toward a vessel or two to get their names and details (if the area is covered by a network receiver). And finally there's Navionics' neat new Ski:US, which admittedly has nothing to do with boats but does speak to this big marine company's big commitment to mobile apps. It happens to have my local Camden Snow Bowl among the so-far-limited ski area coverage, and it works great. In that screen shot I'm playing back the tracks (in yellow) I cut right after last week's big snow dump, in particular the --- MPH moment I lost board control in a huge drift. All these possibilities, and lord knows what else, will expand if Apple introduces a 4.0 version of the iPhone operating system this afternoon. But of course the bigger questions swirl around the Apple tablet, or whatever they decide to call it...
