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| A typical Key West bike, meant for long distance traveling |
Ahoy! Day 3 on the Fleetwing was probably the least laziest so far. I actually got up at a reasonable time today and proceeded to have a nice breakfast. Nana then dredged up memories of the yellow bag of death by putting me to work on finding information on an internship this summer for school. Something I have been putting off due to a very busy semester. After digging through the interwebs and the almost helpful school website, it was time for lunch. I heated up the last of the chicken alfredo from last night and had that with a few Easy Macs. I found Finn’s stash of Easy Mac tucked away in the aft cabin. Nana and I switched gears to more artistic outlets. Nana has been working on some new pastels while I doodled a mountain range. Nana and Grandpa went out for a walk while I fell into the old habit of hunkering down in the aft cabin and watching movies. They returned and Nana started in on cooking up some shrimp for tonight’s dinner. Should be delicious. Tomorrow will be an exploration day. I plan to rent a bike and explore the island in style. Here’s Matt signing off from Camp Fleetwing
The iPad navigation app review was finally published today on Waterway Guide. It was months in the making and now it's out for the world to see.
You can read it here. The evaluation is meant to be neutral based on features I think are valuable. Furthermore, I've included a spreadsheet of all the features of all the 14 apps I evaluated so you can make up your own lists of apps you like based on your own feature list that you think is important. I've also included screenshots of Charleston Harbor taken on most of the apps so you can compare how the charts look from app to app. Take a look. If you see mistakes, don't hesitate to give me a note back so I can make corrections.
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| We're starting to get sunsets again |
The winds continue to howl and the temps continue to be in the 60's. It's the longest cool spell we've experienced but as soon as Matthew leaves, it's due to return to the high 70's with little wind. I wonder if there's a connection there? If the good weather returns on Friday, then we'll take a sail and Matthew's challenge is to top the 8.3 kts posted by his Aunt Caroline last month. We'll see.
11 comments:
Hi Bob423, great review of all the apps! Will have to read it a couple of times to form an opinion. We downloaded Navimatics Charts and Tides to an IPad, as you recommended in ICW guide. I could not find the tide or current info there though. Should I do something with the settings to enable it? Thanks!
Natalia
Natalia, I really like Navimatics Charts and Tides due to the clear chart display and small storage requirement - and the display is quick to refresh. However, the owner hasn’t updated charts since 2016 and there’s no indication he will (I’ve spoken to him). He’s moved on to other pursuits. In Settings you can toggle the display of tides icons on and off. It’s under Display settings near the bottom. With no updates foreseen, I’ve moved on to Aqua Map. They’ve implemented ever enhancement I’ve asked for. They are very responsive and they will be expanding their capabilities this year. They started with a clean slate, so to speak, which has resulted in a logical interface.
Thank you!
Natalia
Bob--
I have read and appreciate your piece as it appears on the Waterway Guide web-site but found the relatively small "window" you were allotted rather small compared with all of the other "stuff" that appears on the page. Frankly, I think they should have given you a separate page (or two) considering the value of your contribution.
FYI, I did down-load a copy of your spreadsheet and have saved it to our navigation file for further review. One thing I did do was add a "Yes Rating" line, i.e. a count of all of the yes's that appear for a given "App" (jeeze I hate that word!). Obviously not all "Yes's" are of equal merit amd I shall eventually go back and add a column for an "Importance factor" to come up with an "Importance Weighted" rating (which would be different for each user, of course) which, further inversely weighted by cost would yield a relative "Value" rating. In terms of the "Yes" factor, AquaMap Americas comes out 1st (at 41); MaxSea TZ, 2nd (at 34); iNavX Marine, 3rd (at 29); and Garmin way back at 14 (predictable for Garmin IMHO).
N'any case, very good work on your part and very useful.
Cheers,
/s/ Scott'n Kitt
s/v HyLyte
‘Scott, that’s a very interesting way to organize the spreadsheet. In terms of cost, how do you handle subscriptions vs a one time buy of charts with lifetime updates?
Scott, or for that matter, lifetime updates vs buying new updated charts every year like for Garmin, MaxSeaTZ, and even iNavX if you want a digital chart like Navionics+?
Bob--
Firstly, note that "Value" is a subjective measure that is particular to a given individual. You and I might look at the same properties of an item but have different opinions as to their respective merit and so rate them differently. In terms of pricing/cost a few factors could be considered. Firstly, longevity of use. IF there is a "fixed" price today but "lifetime" updates (assuming the issuer will remain in business and be providing such up-dates, of course) the question then becomes, how long am I likely to "own/use" the whatever. If I assume I might use "whatever" for 10 years, I have a time horizon for "lifetime" updates against which I can "price" the cost of annual updates by discounting them to present value for comparison with the one-time fixed price item with "free" updates. One could actually "build in" a couple of query fields, e.g.: "How long do you expect to use this item? ___ Years"; "What do you expect the annual price inflation rate to be? __%" (relevant to the prospective cost of future up-dates); "What interest rate do you expect for your savings? __%" (relevant to the discount rate to be used for determining the "Present value" of the future up-date costs). With the foregoing and the reported initial cost of up-dates one could fairly easily calculate a rudimentary "Present Value" as a basis for comparison with the "Fixed Prie/Free Up-dates" item. With that and a "Query Column" for the Importance a user might assign to each feature (perhaps on a one-to-ten scale) one could come up with a "Relative Value" figure although, again, it would be different for each person.
Or, one can just go with the "Yes's" and the "Freud's 'Coin flip' algorithm". In essence, one selects the 3 or 4 most highly rated "App's" based upon "Yes's" and the individual's own "Importance" query column. Then, selects two at random and flips a coin to choose between the two. One does not go with the coin toss, however, but with whether or not one is "pleased" or feels good about the outcome. If so, one goes with the coin toss, if not one goes with the App that wasn't selected by the coin toss (the Freudian choice). Then, on repeats the exercise with the selected App and one of the others at random and continues doing so, always choosing the "more pleasing outcome" until one has eliminated all but one App which, for oneself, is, at least in theory, the optimum solution. (Or, one could just buy the 3 or 4 "best" App's based upon the Yes's and skip all the other baloney,eh?)
/s/ Scott
s/v HyLyte
Scott, I had no idea the decision process could be so complicated. Any rate, the reason for the spreadsheet was to allow the reader to select the features he deems important to get me out of the picture. That assumes I listed every feature, which of course, I didn’t. SEAiq has a ton of features, mostly developed for large ship like the effect of rapid speed over a shallow bottom (suction) or a turning point based on the ship's center of turn that allows for swing clearance fore and aft and much more. I included as much as I thought reasonable but it’s never 100% complete.
As to choosing, one ought to consider the value of the user's time in doing anything more complicated than buying the top three apps (for example) to try out. You got into the selection process much more deeply than I could have imagined. I can always modify the master chart that people download.
Bob--
You asked how one "could" weigh values, not whether one should or whether such effort has any particular value itself as other than an intellectual exercise, eh?.
Cheers!
/s/ Scott
Scott must be a financial person if he is using "Net Present Value" in his calculations! Not going into formulas with interest rates, inflation, etc., I am generally concerned if the company promises a lifetime of upgrades for one-time fixed price. Will they be able to stay in business in this ever-changing world? I have been a member of other organizations that charged too low fees and went bankrupt. And why Navimatics is still able to sell charts, if they don't do yearly upgrades? I feel that they should stop charging money if they decided to pursue other interests...
Natalia
Natalie, I’ll take the questions in reverse order. Navimatics charges no yearly fee. Their only income is selling charts. Since they stopped issuing new charts, they can’t be doing very well. I expect they will quit the Nav app business. Most of the older nav app companies that have been around for awhile charge a yearly fee similar to Navionics, that’s their revenue stream. Another approach is to give away a “helper” type app in hopes of selling more chartplotters like Garmin Active Captain. Both Navionics and Garmin cripple their apps (no route import or export) to encourage their customers to buy a compatible chartplotter. A new company with no chartplotter interface will initially make money by selling their app without the yearly fee business model. As long as they are expanding and selling more and more apps, that can work. As soon as they plateau, then they have to re-evaluate their business model. However, lifetime is lifetime. At some point the lifetime model may be withdrawn due to financial reality, but should be honored for those in on the ground floor, so to speak (I have no inside info on this, just a position of mine). For the time being, it’s a very economical situation for the user. The charts are based on free NOAA ENC charts so they don’t have a charting group to support like a Garmin and Navionics, The charts are enhanced through software manipulation, they look much better than the raw NOAA ENC charts but the basic input is free. Yes, Scott must be a financial person, I would guess.
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