Navionics iPad App

Emjaytoo said:
I have the Navionics App on my iPhone and recently got an iPad. The phone app works on the iPad albeit magnified 2 times. My question is - what would the £45 iPad app give me that I don't already have by running the phone app on my iPad?
Click to expand...

A much bigger, brilliantly clear HD picture. Thoroughly recommended.
 
Emjaytoo said:
what would the £45 iPad app give me that I don't already have by running the phone app on my iPad?
Click to expand...

As far as I know, just more pixels. As you know, the iPhone version run on the iPad just gives you the same low resolution at a greater physical size, so it looks clumsy and blurry. At the proper iPad resolution it would be much more usable.

Sadly, though, you will discover that the going rate for apps on the iPad is higher than for iPhones. The assumption seems to be that, while iPhones are becoming almost ubiquitous via phone contract subsidy, iPad are all bought by a few rich b'stards prepared to spend more on apps. The difference is noticeable.

I haven't bought the iPad Navionics.

Pete
 
Slight Fred drift here but could I just ask, I assume that the Navionics pack loads onto the iPad ... any idea what size the package is for say southern UK and northern France?

AND, if the Nav pack is loaded onto the iPad I'm assuming that it just needs the inbuilt gps to function? (Difficult to get wifi or 3G mid-channel!)

Ta
 
Bav34 said:
Slight Fred drift here but could I just ask, I assume that the Navionics pack loads onto the iPad ... any idea what size the package is for say southern UK and northern France?
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On the iTunes Store it says it's 20mb, but that seems a bit small to me. I wonder if it downloads additional data once you've installed the application itself.

Annoyingly, it comes in two packages - UK & Holland, and the rest of Europe. Each one costs £45. The UK & Holland one covers some of the French Channel coast, but it's not clear from the coverage diagram whether it has all of it. Certainly Cherbourg, and the whole coast from Fécamp eastwards.

Bav34 said:
AND, if the Nav pack is loaded onto the iPad I'm assuming that it just needs the inbuilt gps to function? (Difficult to get wifi or 3G mid-channel!)
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Correct. Some people get confused because it says it only works on the 3G iPad. That's not because it uses 3G, but because only the 3G iPad has a GPS in it.

Pete
 
prv said:
Sadly, though, you will discover that the going rate for apps on the iPad is higher than for iPhones.
Click to expand...

This may be true, but look at it in terms of value for money. For less than forty quid I now have not only the entire coastline of south America, but the Caribbean as well - it must add up to over 30,000 miles of coastline.
Looks like a good deal to me.
 
prv said:
On the iTunes Store it says it's 20mb, but that seems a bit small to me. I wonder if it downloads additional data once you've installed the application itself.
Click to expand...

It does. You draw a box over the map and it downloads everything in that square. Sadly you can't make the square cover the whole map so you need to do it repeatedly if you want the whole map downloading, but there doesn't seem to be a limit to how much you can store. The non downloaded parts remain accessible but very low resolution.

A bit fiddly maybe, but a good app.
 
prv said:
Annoyingly, it comes in two packages - UK & Holland, and the rest of Europe. Each one costs £45. The UK & Holland one covers some of the French Channel coast, but it's not clear from the coverage diagram whether it has all of it. Certainly Cherbourg, and the whole coast from Fécamp eastwards.
Click to expand...

Just looking at my iPhone version of Navionics UK & Holland - it's the older version but I'm assuming the maps are the same ...

Runs from just north of Breles (North of Brest, France) through to Dagebuell (Denmark)
 
Technically Challenged

Flying Penguin said:
It does. You draw a box over the map and it downloads everything in that square. Sadly you can't make the square cover the whole map so you need to do it repeatedly if you want the whole map downloading, but there doesn't seem to be a limit to how much you can store. The non downloaded parts remain accessible but very low resolution.

A bit fiddly maybe, but a good app.
Click to expand...

For a hoping soon to be i-pad owner can I just clarify, the app gives you access to the charts on the Navionics server so I then need to download various sections of the map to store in the i-pad memory?

Does the i-pad GPS work off shore or is it just within the range of 3g signal and can you hook it up to an external GPS.
 
NDH said:
For a hoping soon to be i-pad owner can I just clarify, the app gives you access to the charts on the Navionics server so I then need to download various sections of the map to store in the i-pad memory?
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Yes that is correct. The detailed charts need to be downloaded before you use it in anger offline, but there is no extra charge, so you could download the whole thing if you need. I've just downloaded an area covering Greece, Turkey and Croatia as that's all I need.


NDH said:
Does the i-pad GPS work off shore or is it just within the range of 3g signal and can you hook it up to an external GPS.
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I've never tried it completely out of phone signal range, but it gives position fine with wifi and 3g turned off in the settings menu, so I can't see any reason it wouldn't. I think you can connect a Bluetooth GPS but if you have a 3G iPad this is unnecessary as it has a built in GPS receiver which works fine without network assistance.
 
Navionics lost my faith when they screwed us over with the new mobile version. I had it on my Android and I used it a lot but had to reboot the phone completely after an error. I went to reinstall and the old version through the market but it was no longer available, I had to buy the new version. Balls to that, Navionics you have lost a customer.
 
I have Navionics on iPhone and iPad.

Essentially the same stuff, but it means you can look at a much bigger area with the same level of detail. Just like looking at a bigger chart.

Well worth the money. I do all my passage planning on it.

It works perfectly away from 3G. I no longer have a 3G contract ( I just tether my iPhone if needed) and even when the phone is switched off, or somewhere else I get perfect position data.

It even worked in Egypt when I had left my phone in the UK.
 
wiggy said:
You need the 3G (more expensive) I-pad the other does not have internal GPS, it needs a wifi connection -bit hard art sea!
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Only to download the maps in the first place. GPS works fine with 3G and Wifi turned off.

Just to make sure, I just turned off all coms and 3g and the Navionics app still managed to locate me at my desk no problem.
 
wiggy said:
You need the 3G (more expensive) I-pad the other does not have internal GPS, it needs a wifi connection -bit hard art sea!
Click to expand...

Yup, which is the reason I saved a lot of cash and got a Samsung Galxy 10.1 tab instead of an iPad. The gps issue swung it for me. No regrets so far. I use an iphone too with Navionics which is a great backup to the "proper" nav gear on board.
 
asteven221 said:
Yup, which is the reason I saved a lot of cash and got a Samsung Galxy 10.1 tab instead of an iPad. The gps issue swung it for me. No regrets so far. I use an iphone too with Navionics which is a great backup to the "proper" nav gear on board.
Click to expand...

It's a common misconception that it requires 3G to get position data. The GPS antenna is part of the 3G chip (hence only the 3G iPad has GPS), but it does not require 3G signal to function.
 
Just to add to other users' experience - a 3G iPad has a built in GPS and that will give you a position when you are out of 3G range and WiFi. I have used mine with success in the middle of the Atlantic (because I was bored, if you're curious).

I hadn't realised that you must download selected areas before you go, but that would explain why I failed to get anything more than an outline in some parts of the world, whereas other came up in full detail. It must have been because I had been looking at these areas while at home, and had therefore picked up the necessary data.

So as long as you download likely areas of interest before you go, no problems.
 
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