Good Nav Program for IPad

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Seevee

Seevee

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Looking for a GOOD navigation program for iPad that will do the following, if it exists:

Has and up to date map, Garmin, Navionics or similar.

Has a way to easily enter wpts for a route to a destination.
Will give dynamic time to each point and to destination, so I can determine an ETA.

Shouldn't be have but I can believe I can't find one.

Garmin Blue charts with Active Captain is great, but no ETAs and routes are a bit awkward.

Thanks.
 
I have been very happy with Navionics on my ipad. My primary chart plotter is a PC running Coastal Explorer, but I have my iPad running Navionics mounted at my helm and use it every day. Its Auto routing feature is excellent but it is also very easy to create a route and modify a route.
 
I have tried a few and had Navionics for a while, but it is clumsy to use. The GUI keeps dropping me into a info screen and away from the map. The hands down winner for me was iSailor.
 
Tom.B said:
I have tried a few and had Navionics for a while, but it is clumsy to use. The GUI keeps dropping me into a info screen and away from the map. The hands down winner for me was iSailor.
Click to expand...

How long ago was that? I am using it every day, and am very impressed. I have never seen that problem. It is easy to use and has proven to be very reliable. Been using it as a back up chartplotter for more than 2 years (10-12,000 nautical miles) and I have given seminars for SAIL and Passagemaker, on navigating the ICW. This is one of the tools I recommend.
 
Tom.B said:
The hands down winner for me was iSailor.[/QUOTE

Ditto on iSailor with one major complaint. One can't have courses displayed in Magnetic. Only True North.
Click to expand...
 
Seevee said:
Looking for a GOOD navigation program for iPad that will do the following, if it exists:

Has and up to date map, Garmin, Navionics or similar.

Has a way to easily enter wpts for a route to a destination.
Will give dynamic time to each point and to destination, so I can determine an ETA.

Shouldn't be have but I can believe I can't find one.

Garmin Blue charts with Active Captain is great, but no ETAs and routes are a bit awkward.

Thanks.
Click to expand...

By "dynamic time" do you mean real time as you are following the route?

Or you create the route/waypoint and tell it your guesstimated speed and it gives you an estimated eta?
 
We use Navionics now for 2 years, for us easiest to use. Especially up north for currents and tides. Auto route is great and real time tracking while underway is a great feature.
It is now our primary chart/route plotter and the RayMarine is our backup.
Best part is the ability to plan next days trip anywhere on the boat.
I think it costs $50 a year for all the charts needed for the entire west coast.
 
tadhana said:
How long ago was that? I am using it every day, and am very impressed. I have never seen that problem. It is easy to use and has proven to be very reliable. Been using it as a back up chartplotter for more than 2 years (10-12,000 nautical miles) and I have given seminars for SAIL and Passagemaker, on navigating the ICW. This is one of the tools I recommend.
Click to expand...



Every time I use it, I manage to hit one of the three buttons on the ends of the crosshairs while panning around or zooming. It drives me nuts.
 
Tom.B said:
The hands down winner for me was iSailor.
Click to expand...

+1 for iSailor. Way easy to use.

It shows the estimated times for each leg based on the cruise speed you put in the table for your boat. Then I just do an easy head-estimate adjustment based on my speed over the bottom vs. my basic cruise speed. or you could just change the cruise speed in the table if you don't want to do head math.

In Puget Sound, I'm always faster or slower than average due to significant tidal currents. iSailor has a good tide/currents table too. Makes planning the next days transits easy.

Way easy to adjust tracks on the fly too. i'm using an iPad with a GPS/Glonass puck, good enough to know which end of the boat its on.
 
I am with Drake Garmin Blue Mobile combined with active captain made our ICW trip from Rock Hall MD to Marathon in the Keys a joy for us
 
boomerang said:
Capt.Bill11 said:
dwhatty said:
Why would you want them displayed in magnetic?

Now I'm curious...Why wouldn't you want the course displayed in magnetic?
Click to expand...

Thanks to GPS most people don't navigate by a compass anymore. And since courses are plotted in true in most cases, why not have them displayed in true?

"Note, that the actual course lines the navigator draws in the chart are always true courses! These can subsequently be labeled with the true course or the corresponding magnetic or compass course if appropriate."

Personally I set all my displays to show true degrees if I can.

Chart kits like the Explorer kits for the Bahamas show plotted courses in true.
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
 
Capt.Bill11 said:
By "dynamic time" do you mean real time as you are following the route?

Or you create the route/waypoint and tell it your guesstimated speed and it gives you an estimated eta?
Click to expand...


Capt Bill,

Real time, just like it give you position and speed real time as we move along. Would be easy to give ETA. We should be able to enter a guestimated speed too, perhaps for no wake zones (if we know of them).
 
Capt.Bill11 said:
boomerang said:
Capt.Bill11 said:
Thanks to GPS most people don't navigate by a compass anymore. And since courses are plotted in true in most cases, why not have them displayed in true?

"Note, that the actual course lines the navigator draws in the chart are always true courses! These can subsequently be labeled with the true course or the corresponding magnetic or compass course if appropriate."

Personally I set all my displays to show true degrees if I can.

Chart kits like the Explorer kits for the Bahamas show plotted courses in true.
Click to expand...

I'm a die hard magnetic guy. For any local cursing in the continental US, lower Canada and Carribean ALL my courses charts, plotters, courses, and compass are magnetic. I could totally do without true. No need for true in this day an age.

What is it that you like about true? And what courses are you getting off a chart in true that you really need?
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
 
Seevee said:
Capt.Bill11 said:
boomerang said:
I'm a die hard magnetic guy. For any local cursing in the continental US, lower Canada and Carribean ALL my courses charts, plotters, courses, and compass are magnetic. I could totally do without true. No need for true in this day an age.

What is it that you like about true? And what courses are you getting off a chart in true that you really need?
Click to expand...

To each his own.

But true is what you plot on a chart. So why would you want to convert?

Magnetic North can and does move. True doesn't.

There is no need for magnetic in this day and age. :D

https://books.google.com/books?id=q...y courses are plotted in true degrees&f=false
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
 
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Another vote for Navionics...
 
Capt.Bill11 said:
Seevee said:
Capt.Bill11 said:
To each his own.

But true is what you plot on a chart. So why would you want to convert?

Magnetic North can and does move. True doesn't.

There is no need for magnetic in this day and age. :D

https://books.google.com/books?id=q...y courses are plotted in true degrees&f=false
Click to expand...

Bill,

Neither Magnetic North nor true north moves, a least enough to be an issue (perhaps 500 miles in a lifetime) True you have magnetic deviation and variation. But ALL of the charts produced for our products, plus ALL gps units use magnetic. When you plan a route, you do it in magnetic, and virtually all of the information you get from your chart plotter is magnetic. If you use true, you have to convert back to magnetic to get anywhere. Even the old charts with loran LOPs used magnetic.

The ONLY time you need true if you're operating above the magnetic north.. believe its something like 75d north, and that's an ugly hostile place to operate anyway. When I flew the route to Hong Kong we would convert to true up there for about 5 hours over the pole, and glad to get back to magnetic on the other side.

We "USED" to use true... many years ago. Perhaps back in the years of VLF and Omega. I've used them, but can't remember how they work other than they were a PITA. Not any more. Really what do you see in true that prompts you to use it, I don't understand. Please let me know.
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
 
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Again I ask you, if courses on charts should be plotted in true, why would you not use true and instead use magnetic, which you have first to convert to true to plot?

What's the point?

So 500 miles doesn't count as moving?

"The Earth's magnetic poles move. The magnetic North Pole moves in loops of up to 50 miles (80 km) per day. But its actual location, an average of all these loops, is also moving at around 25 miles a year [ref]. In the last 150 years, the pole has wandered a total of about 685 miles (1102 kilometers)."

What are you going to do when it flips? :D
 
Capt.Bill11 said:
Again I ask you, if courses on charts should be plotted in true, why would you not use true and instead use magnetic, which you have first to convert to true to plot?

What's the point?

So 500 miles doesn't count as moving?

"The Earth's magnetic poles move. The magnetic North Pole moves in loops of up to 50 miles (80 km) per day. But its actual location, an average of all these loops, is also moving at around 25 miles a year [ref]. In the last 150 years, the pole has wandered a total of about 685 miles (1102 kilometers)."

What are you going to do when it flips? :D
Click to expand...

All true, but what reference do you use for navigating? How do you get true north on your plotter? How do you know where true north is?

And a movement in 685 miles in 150 years might mean that you'll miss the dock by 3 inches.

I'm not convinced but sure have an open mind to a reasonable explanation.
 
I have just about every navigation app there is on my iPad's. I need them to let customers play with so they can decide what app they prefer to use as a secondary or tertiary navigation tool.

The hands down winner they choose most often, after using them, is Transas iSailor. A lot of people assume iSailor is a bit player but the parent company, Transas, has been a global leader in shipping navigation & bridge management systems for years. Transas is not a "bit player" at all.. With all the nav apps available on my iPad, the one I go to most is iSailor. It's also the one most of my customers choose when they get to use them all side by side.

Some still choose Navionics, and of course Garmin Blue Chart for Active Captain, but Blue Chart Mobile is not really a full featured nav app and is really intended as a planning app.

What I like with iSailor is the simple clean nature and the well drawn NOAA feel vector charts. No matter where I have gone, or done a delivery, the iSailor charts have been spot on and in many cases a more accurate rendering than Garmin or Navionics.

Also, in course up, everything displays perfectly, including text & soundings. Navionics, for example, will not rotate text, just the chart, a real PITA for when you may prefer to run a course up view. There really is no excuse for this with Navionics in this day and age.

In general I am not a fan of the Navionics chart renderings. Still trying to figure out where the little pink "Peeps" are shown in Chart #1.....
clear.png
;)

None of these apps are perfect in every aspect but for myself, and most of my customers, they prefer iSailor over the others.

Disclaimer: I would never suggest and I am not suggesting the use of an iPad as your primary (only) means of electronic navigation.
 
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We have Navionics, really nice application, generally use it while I'm in the salon with a cup of coffee in the morning planning out the next stop (out vacations are rather open ended). The application has a lot of information including marina details/restaurants etc. The other feature I like is tidal flow and tide times. One major feature it doesn't have which I would really would like is Active Captain, heard good things about Garmins app with AC.
 
One app for iOS that I haven't seen mentioned here (maybe I missed it) is Navimatics. It is simple and basic and interfaces with the Active Captain database. The charting is vector and while it looks ok, it is not as sharp and almost raster like as is the iSailor charting.

I particularly like its easy way to click on a tide or current symbol and get a graphical chart of the data as well as point to point distance measuring.

I mostly use it as a look ahead supplement to our helm mounted chart plotter.

If iSailor had an easy way to measure a point to point distance and the tides and current lookups, I would use that one just for its pretty charting.

David
 
I use a chartplotter for primary Navigation. iSailor for nav on my iPad and iPhone. And Garmin Bluecharts for planning/look ahead app on iPad.

Oh yeah....and I am a magnetic guy with a magnetic personality!!!...;)
 
djmarchand said:
If iSailor had an easy way to measure a point to point distance and the tides and current lookups, I would use that one just for its pretty charting.

David
Click to expand...
Thanks for your opinions on this stuff. Regarding point-to-point with iSailor, I just drop a couple of waypoint pins on the chart with the routing tool and the distance/heading are displayed. I can drag the pins around to suit my needs/guesses on any particular leg.
Here's how it looks for a couple of legs....
img_550207_0_4e390de7b240bf1a1c02af84e1a83467.png
 
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