Navigation Software for new tablet

[Wxx3]

I should have added info about this. I'm in direct contact with all of the companies.

MX Mariner works well under Android today and provides charts for US/UK/NZ/Brazil. The missing charts for this audience is probably the Caribbean and Canada along with the inland rivers of the US. They've promised ActiveCaptain support and I've had numerous discussions with the developer over the last 3 years.

MaxSea/Nobeltec's iPad app is pretty much the same software. Both applications under Windows support ActiveCaptain today. Today their iOS apps only support the iPad and there is no Android support.

Jeppesen Plan2Nav is available for Android today with worldwide chart support. It's the app that I use on my Android devices for navigation and it has ActiveCaptain support today.

The absolute best way to get support for a capability or platform like Android is to get a bunch of people together and have them individually write to the developer and tell them what they want. This is a small market. Getting 50 emails makes a big difference. Almost all of these developers are not in boats (there are exceptions) and don't use any of this stuff for real themselves. They don't really know what's needed and rely on feedback from you.

The real reason there is much less Android support than iOS is that Android users purchase many fewer apps than iOS users (this is well known in all application areas). And purchase is the wrong word because free apps are downloaded much less under Android too. I have 3 apps in both Google Play and the iTunes store. Although there are more Android devices than iOS devices today, iOS downloads happen 300% - 500% more than Android downloads for my own apps. Few vertical market Android developers make a good income. I'm working with multiple single-guy iOS app developers who bring in $10,000 - $20,000 per month in iOS sales. THAT is the reason there are fewer Android apps for boating - it's very hard and rare to make money developing for Android. So if you have Android devices, start downloading the apps you like and buy them. And get every other boater with Android devices to do the same. Android owners slit their own throats by not paying for quality apps.

Thanks so much for this detailed response. Being an android person, I have wondered about this for a while.

Knowing my friends with Apples, I think they have more money to begin with and spend accordingly.

I use both mx mariner and navionics on my phone. Weirdly, the navionics app on my phone is far more detailed than the navionics software on my chart plotter.

 

[Jeffrey S]

Knowing my friends with Apples, I think they have more money to begin with and spend accordingly.

It's something more than that. The exact same phenomenon happens for free apps. And again, there are more Android devices.

My own DragQueen free app is a good example - the iOS and Android versions were released within two weeks of each other almost 2 years ago so the data is pretty stable now.

iOS downloads - 25,000+
Android downloads - 7,000+

There's more competition for other anchor alarms in iOS too.

My other two apps are similar and developer friends of mine consistently experience the exact same thing.

If you were a developer and had to pick a single platform, which one would you pick first (if not only)? Until Android users start downloading, buying, and using apps a lot more, the number and quality of apps will not catch up to iOS because vertical market developers can't make enough money writing the apps for Android.

 

[Wxx3]

Wow. Drag Queen is yours, it's great.
Thank you.

Could it be that they're many versions of android that while the same; aren't?

 

[QB]

Got a new Nexus 7 32gb for Xmas. Any suggestions/recommendations regarding navigation software? Looked at a few potentials but all seem to have their critics. Anyone using a new (2013) Nexus 7 for navigation? From what I can gather, Navionics only supports last years model. There are a few inexpensive apps, but, I'm just a little skeptical about just how accurate they might be.
Thanks for your input.

To actually answer the original question in this thread...

I have Navionics US and Canada running on my 2013 Nexus 7. In fact I'm running the phone version, not the tablet version, since I bought it originally for my Nexus 4. It works fine, except that the info pages won't rotate into landscape mode (Navionics claim they are working on this). Hard to beat for the price IMO.

 

[Jeffrey S]

Wow. Drag Queen is yours, it's great.

Thanks. DragKing is coming to the Companion (also free) next - perhaps in 2014 but it might slip. It'll provide a graphic display of the anchor location/swing and provide remote capabilities so you can monitor your anchor when off the boat (with internet access).

Could it be that they're many versions of android that while the same; aren't?

This is a common conversation between developers - the "why" of why we think this happens. The basic consensus is that absolutely everyone with an iPhone knows exactly how to find, download, and use apps. Apple has done a great job of making the experience easy for anyone. The whole, "There's an app for that" commercial has gotten into the soul of every iOS owner and everyone knows that saying.

Android users, on the other hand, often purchase their phones to be a phone and contact list. Tablets are different but there are many fewer of them with the iPad still dominating that market. While Droid users know their phones can run apps, they buy the phone mainly as a phone. I've grabbed other boater's Droids to find no added apps. You'll never find that with an iPhone. A good percentage of Droid users don't know how to add apps. Every iPhone user knows how to use the Apple App Store.

 

[Barpilot]

Thanks. That's the kind of input I was hoping for.

 

[Wxx3]

I think you hit the nail on the head. It doesn't help that Google keeps changing the names of things and where to get stuff. Probably the biggest problem right there.
Even I had tunes that I corks not figure where to get something. Also, the Motorola droid, um, Google again, my first android phone, could hardly run any apps correctly.
I've never hated a phone so much. I was at the Verizon store waiting for it to open on the first day I could change.

Samsung is truly a competitor worthy of competing with Apple.