NAVIONICS MOBILE FOR THE IPHONE 3gs

I hear only good things about it, you only get about three hours of continuous battery use tho' (so I'm told).
 
I have Navionics for 3G. Plenty of software updates but charts are not up to date. I only use it for quick looks at home and showing people where we are going.

The navigation feature allows way points and routing and some natty tidal / current information is available.

At sea I keep it plugged in at the chart table and switched on. I don't have a chart plotter repeater at the chart table, so it makes a great low cost plotter for a quick look at actual position down at the chart table.

For me its simply and wee planing tool for pub and home use, which makes it very useful.

I am sure that I have seen posts in this forum where others discuss how they use it as a back up Chart Plotter to show position on. Its a good idea. I would rather use non electronic methods as back up but I feel that I now want to be converted to the dark side, heaven forbid!

It is probably a very underused tool by myself.
 
warwicksail said:
Hi

Anybody had or heard of any veiws ?
Click to expand...

There have been several threads, but it is hard to search for them because iPhone as a word pops up all over the place.

The short version is that the software is very good and at such a tiny price it represents superb value for money.

As already commented it is a great tool for planning and discussing things in the pub!
 
I've been toying with idea of an Iphone for a while now so i can have all my apps for sailing.

Just curious though,
Do the do any good waterproof covers? i.e Usable and submersible :s
What is battery life like when running apps?
Any major problems with software crashes etc? (not like bloody Nokias!!!)

I'm holding onto to see what Orange offer, price plan wise, compared to O2.
 
monkfish24 said:
I've been toying with idea of an Iphone for a while now so i can have all my apps for sailing.

Just curious though,
Do the do any good waterproof covers? i.e Usable and submersible :s
What is battery life like when running apps?
Any major problems with software crashes etc? (not like bloody Nokias!!!)

I'm holding onto to see what Orange offer, price plan wise, compared to O2.
Click to expand...
I had been an iPhone resistor but after my BB packed up I bought one, primarily for the marine add ons available.
Have now had it 2 days.
No crashes yet.
Compass very susceptible to interference, but it tells you when it's confused.
GPS locks on astonishingly fast from cold.
Battery terrible especially on tom tom or navionics (both stunningly good programmes and in the navionics case incredibly cheap) so you need a 12v charger. It also charges when you plug it into a PC.
Free tide programmes available, and links to things like XC weather for your location can be put on the home screen.
Buy the rubber sleeve and it doesn't slide around.
Incredible bit of kit all in all.
 
My view .... the same as all the positive stuff above really. For the cash it's a great little backup and the tide info etc is ideal for planning when sat somewhere away from the boat with a spare 5 minutes to plan.
 
IRL Marina info ALL WRONG

Hello,

I have been using it in IRL and almost all the southern ireland marinas have the wrong information, some phone numbers have UK prefix and some have Dutch prefix and this means you cant ring them direct through the iPhone. Other information such as Marina VHF channels are missing or inconsistant. Dun Laoghaire marina (the biggest in IRL) is on the carts but no phone number or VHF contact info.

Howth, Co. Dublin is listed as being in Co. Fungal....is that some sort of infection?

Also the inland lakes on the Shannon are listed as is lough Neagh & the Erne but you have to zoom in really close to see them so when you are looking at Ireland filling the screen you have to guess where the lakes are.

Also when you zoom into the the inland waterways the view is ruined by contours, pity you can't choose the detail level.

Regards,

Expapp
 
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exapp said:
Hello,

I have been using it in IRL and almost all the southern ireland marinas have the wrong information, some phone numbers have UK prefix and some have Dutch prefix and this means you cant ring them direct through the iPhone. Other information such as Marina VHF channels are missing or inconsistant. Dun Laoghaire marina (the biggest in IRL) is on the carts but no phone number or VHF contact info.

Howth, Co. Dublin is listed as being in Co. Fungal....is that some sort of infection?

Also the inland lakes on the Shannon are listed as is lough Neagh & the Erne but you have to zoom in really close to see them so when you are looking at Ireland filling the screen you have to guess where the lakes are.

Also when you zoom into the the inland waterways the view is ruined by contours, pity you can't choose the detail level.

Regards,

Expapp
Click to expand...

Have you contacted them directly to get an answer to this?
 
Navionics IRL

yes I reported the errors using the error reporting tool in the app but never got a reply. Then I upgraded the app to a new update that came out after OS 3.0 and the maps vanished for 10 days until Navionics fixed this bug.

While in contact with them over the missing maps I also reported the useless marina info on the IRL charts and was told that the error reporting tool was not keeping email addresses so thats why I got no reply. So then I got the stock answer

"Thank you for contacting Navionics. We appreciate your taking the time to notify us of any discrepancies you may have found in our product. We will be investigating your report and will contact you when and if the error has been corrected. Thank you for your time."

They did come and answer a previous post by me somewere else on the forum

Regards,

Exapp
 
I've not used the Navionics in depth, so cannot comment on the quality of the data. It does include tide information (and more than the 'free tides' application), so it's handy in that regard.

Regarding battery life: You can also switch off the wifi, as even at sea when there is no signal the hardware is still trying to sniff one out. I get 1-2 days of standard use, but less than a day if I am using it hard, so definitely get a charger.

TomTom have just released an Iphone holder/charger which may be suitable, although expensive. There are plenty of cheap iphone car holders on Ebay, but most are suction only - really you need something that you can mount.
 
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