After my first post Crossing the Atlantic with an iPad here are some screenshots provided by Christophe Mahé between Panama and the Marquesas Islands, during his crossing last month. Just to dream a little, and to convince the last recalcitrant about the ability of an iPad to provide a position and trace a route anywhere on the globe. Read more …
Category : iOS – iPadOS
iSailor, charts are available for France
Sex updated list of new charts available for iSailor, include coasts of France :
∙ Germany ∙ Australia ∙ Bermuda ∙ Canada ∙ Denmark ∙ Egypt ∙ Spain ∙ Estonia ∙ Finland ∙ France ∙ Greece ∙ Italy ∙ Ireland ∙ Latvia ∙ New Zealand ∙ Norway ∙ Papua New Guinea ∙ The Netherlands ∙ Portugal ∙ United Kingdom ∙ Suede ∙ USA : Atlantic Coast, Gulf Coast, Pacific Coast, Hawaiian Islands, Alaska, Great Lakes (U.S. Waters). Read more …
iNavX, application steadily increasing
Since the beginning of the year 2011, not less than six iNavX updates were made by Rich Ray, either one monthly !
If we don't find anything revolutionary there, many “invisible” improvements have been made, as optimizing objects display (waypoints, Icons, tracks, routes, etc,), tracks resolution, convenient improvements on measures of distance, waypoints display, chart available information, alarm management (anchor, TCP/IP disconnect), instrument display (Choice of analog or digital). Read more …
Weather4D 1.1 for iPad and iPhone, at the top.
Two months after out for iPhone, Weather4D (¹), by surprising Olivier Bouyssou, arrives with a version fully optimized for iPad, with the modest release number 1.1.
This single iPhone/iPad version is therefore a simple free update for the lucky buyers of the version 1.0.
And yet, what work it took to adapt and optimize this 3D application, both iPhone screens and memory capacities 3 and 4 than those of iPads 1 and 2, known to be very different ! Read more …
iSailor : Transas maps on iPhone and iPad
In France, mariners know little, or not at all, about Transas company of Russian origin. The Transas Group is nevertheless one of the world's leading professional of navigation software . Founded in 1990 in St Petersburgh, it opens its first office in England in Southampton (UK). Application developer for maritime and aeronautical training simulators, leading ECDIS certified designer, AIS network installer, the company has provided its electronic charting systems to prestigious customers, as the Russian space station MIR in 1996. There are countless marine simulator and flight simulators equipped with Transas technology in training centers worldwide. Several major commercial harbours are also equipped with VTS (*) and VTM (*) from Transas.
With 200 million turnover, the now international group, majority run by Russians, has its headquarters in Cork, Ireland.
All this to tell you that, when the very serious Transas company decides to launch a marine charting application on the iPhone and iPad, does not hesitate to rely on a communication, let’s say… particularly impactful. See instead… Read more …
iNavX and SiiTech AIS server
iNavX allows you to connect, since version 3.1.7 from February the 11 October 2010, to the data server AIS SiiTech which I talked about in a previous post (¹). The interest of this service remained questionable in France because of the poor coverage of our coasts. That could change.
Indeed, the number of SiiTech ground stations is increasing, the Channel coasts are now well covered, and the Atlantic coast should be gradually equipped (²).
In addition, The version 3.2.4 of iNavX comes with an improvement that makes a revival of interest for this feature : it is now available to select the origin point of AIS data from SiiTech server, or the position of the ship (that of the iPhone/iPad used), or a previously created waypoint. The reception radius being about 30 nautical miles around place of origin, this allows for a significant increase in the coverage of AIS data reception.
iPad 2 and iOS 4.3 – What's new for boaters ?
Since the introduction of this new iPad and installing the new OS on my devices (iPhone 3GS and iPad 1), I wondered about the advantages that could be derived from it by boaters, compared to previous model and system. Read more …
Crossing the Atlantic with an iPad
I cannot resist the urge to show you some pics (*) to iNavX on iPad which has just crossed the Atlantic, from Mediterranean to Martinique. The sailor has abandoned his MacBook Air, on which he uses MacENC for several years with S-57 ENC charts. It switched to an iPad 3G, featured iNavX, Navionics Gold charts and the Apple app Numbers to write his log book.
iNavX in action
Navionics Mobile and Community Sharing
Once will not hurt, I relayed the information in French from Blog Panbo which have interest for Apple mobile devices users.
Community Sharing
- User Generated Content (User-generated content)
- Social Mapping or Social Charting (Social Mapping)
- Crowd Sourcing (Crowd sourcing)
All these english words mean the same principle : sharing to the community all maritime information collected by each charting software user. In other words, each boater can use its navigation application to share all information on any changes observed over charts. This can concern the markup, the erection of a new quay or the appearance of new catways in a harbour, practical information on new harbourt services, incorrect positioning of a rock or the appearance of an uncharted shoal, etc,. Read more …
Marine weather on iPhone
In a previous post about my favorites apps for iPhone, I cited two weather apps : La Chaine Météo, very good general weather application from Meteo Consult, and iSailing Weather that offers maps of sea-based weather GRIB files from British origin.
Weather France has finally added its own free app, offering its full range of forecasts, including marine weather reports in text format. Read more …