The Garmin 496...a teenager's review

It's amazing that you're the only one to think of this. Congratulations!

Look around at the demographic of pilots nowadays. I'm 48, and I'm
still considered the "Young Guy" at the airport -- which is the reason
so few pilots apparently grasp how truly clunky the 496 is to use.
Garmin is not dealing with a generation that has grown up with a mouse
in our hands, and most pilots have nothing to compare the 496 against.

My son does. And his observations were right on the money.

And, quite frankly, Garmin is still the only "all-in-one-box" weather
option. As long as Lowrance and AvMap continue to sit on their hands
regarding weather, Garmin has little incentive to improve.

Trouble is, weather is so important that many of us (me included) have
been willing to put up with almost ANY performance in order to get it
in the panel. XM weather has changed flying so dramatically for us
that I'd be willing to use a stone tablet in order to get it whilst
airborne. But it really took a 16-year-old's perspective to make it
clear exactly how slow the unit really is.

Sadly, now that my unit is panel docked, I'm pretty much married to
the display size, so I hope Garmin leaves that unchanged. (Even
though I would LOVE a bigger screen.) And I don't find the user
interface to be bad at all -- in fact, I love it. They got that
right, IMHO.

But I truly hope they eventually do something about the screen refresh
rate, cuz all of us -- Mary, me, and now Joe -- want to punch the
panel while we're waiting for that stupid screen to refresh after
slewing the cursor to the next METAR reporting station...
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

"Jay Honeck" wrote in message
ups.com...
It's amazing that you're the only one to think of this. Congratulations!

Look around at the demographic of pilots nowadays. I'm 48, and I'm
still considered the "Young Guy" at the airport -- which is the reason
so few pilots apparently grasp how truly clunky the 496 is to use.
Garmin is not dealing with a generation that has grown up with a mouse
in our hands, and most pilots have nothing to compare the 496 against.

My son does. And his observations were right on the money.

Jay,

Stick to running hotels. As a technologist, you're assessment is
embarrassing.

If Sony or MS could translate their game systems to GPS naive, they already
would have done so.

You're starting to sound like those naive folks who think making cars and
making aircraft are so much the same thing.

"Matt Barrow" wrote in message
...

"Jay Honeck" wrote in message
ups.com...
It's amazing that you're the only one to think of this.
Congratulations!

Look around at the demographic of pilots nowadays. I'm 48, and I'm
still considered the "Young Guy" at the airport -- which is the reason
so few pilots apparently grasp how truly clunky the 496 is to use.
Garmin is not dealing with a generation that has grown up with a mouse
in our hands, and most pilots have nothing to compare the 496 against.

My son does. And his observations were right on the money.

Jay,

Stick to running hotels. As a technologist, you're assessment is
embarrassing.


As someone who was presumably taught the English language at an early age..
"you're"... (??)

Glass houses and all that.

KB

"Kyle Boatright" wrote in message
. ..

"Matt Barrow" wrote in message
...

"Jay Honeck" wrote in message
ups.com...
It's amazing that you're the only one to think of this.
Congratulations!

Look around at the demographic of pilots nowadays. I'm 48, and I'm
still considered the "Young Guy" at the airport -- which is the reason
so few pilots apparently grasp how truly clunky the 496 is to use.
Garmin is not dealing with a generation that has grown up with a mouse
in our hands, and most pilots have nothing to compare the 496 against.

My son does. And his observations were right on the money.

Jay,

Stick to running hotels. As a technologist, you're assessment is
embarrassing.


As someone who was presumably taught the English language at an early
age.. "you're"... (??)

Glass houses and all that.

Your analogy is wrong on two counts. Evidently your English skills outweigh
your technical and logical skills.

("Kyle Boatright" wrote)
As someone who was presumably taught the English language at an early
age.. "you're"... (??)

Glass houses and all that.


Well now you ARE in Jay's wheelhouse (pilothouse). You know with that
English major of his and whatnot.


Paul-Mont ....and all that jazz

(wheelhouse: from Dictionary.com)

Danish: styrehus
Dutch: stuurhut

Estonian: kaptenisild

Finnish: ohjaushytti
French: timonerie

German: das Ruderhaus
Greek: t?µ?????a

Hungarian: kormányosfülke

Icelandic: stÿrishús
Indonesian: ruang kemudi
Italian: timoniera

Latvian: sturesmaja
Lithuanian: vairininko kabina

Polish: sterówka
Portuguese (Brazil): cabine de navegação
Portuguese (Portugal): casa do leme

Romanian: timonerie
Russian: ??????? ?????

Slovak: kormidelníkova kabína
Slovenian: kabina s krmilom
Spanish: timonera, caseta del timón, puente de mando
Swedish: styrhytt

Turkish: dümen mahalli

My spell checker is smoking....

"Matt Barrow" wrote

Stick to running hotels. As a technologist, you're assessment is
embarrassing.

Matt, what the hell is wrong with you lately.

Did someone **** in your Wheaties? Something wrong with your lovelife?

For the past few weeks you have been more obnoxious than usual.

Think about it, and think about toning it down. Everyone will soon be
avoiding you, if you keep it up.
--
Jim in NC

Stick to running hotels. As a technologist, you're assessment is
embarrassing.

Matt, what the hell is wrong with you lately.

Did someone **** in your Wheaties? Something wrong with your lovelife?

For the past few weeks you have been more obnoxious than usual.

Heck, I haven't noticed any difference...

;-)

Seriously, I *know* that the 496 and PSP are not the same thing, and I
*know* that Sony sells 80 gazillion game platforms for every one of
Garmin's GPS units.

My point in posting is simply to highlight how truly crappy these
units are, and how expensive they are, comparatively speaking. For
those of you who think otherwise, get thee to your kids room, and see
what real "high tech" looks like.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

"Jay Honeck" wrote in message
ups.com...
Stick to running hotels. As a technologist, you're assessment is
embarrassing.

Matt, what the hell is wrong with you lately.

Did someone **** in your Wheaties? Something wrong with your lovelife?

For the past few weeks you have been more obnoxious than usual.

Maybe the level of stupidity has grown all out of whack?

(And I'm not refering to Jay here; his error is one of context)


Heck, I haven't noticed any difference...

;-)

Seriously, I *know* that the 496 and PSP are not the same thing, and I
*know* that Sony sells 80 gazillion game platforms for every one of
Garmin's GPS units.

My point in posting is simply to highlight how truly crappy these
units are, and how expensive they are, comparatively speaking. For
those of you who think otherwise, get thee to your kids room, and see
what real "high tech" looks like.

Funny thing, the rest of the market makes stuff just as crappy.

If it were so easy.....

Ok, as a 25 year old "Senior" Mobile Framework engineer with a dozen
mobile games under my belt and an 200mhz ARM reference board I play
around with at work, not to mention 2 years experience with GPS and
Location services, I think I know something about this.

And Jay is right on the money... seriously.

Given capability of the hardware and the maturity of the embedded
platforms at this point, the current crop of avionics (handheld and
otherwise) isn't just substandard, its a downright embarrassment, and
it smacks of _ZERO_ effort on the part of the current producers.

I think you all underestimate the extent to which aviation has
completely fallen off the radar of the younger generation. There is
the sense that it is a dying market, and as a dying market, its not
worth investing in, so the fact that a trivial investment is all
that's needed to break into it doesn't matter. The young tech-dork
generation is all chasing after youTube and Google and social
networking and 'the next big thing'. That's how they'll (we'll) make
our cool hundred million and join the ranks of the Sillicon Valley
elite. A small side business in a 'dying' industry simply isn't what
they're watching.

BTW, the reason I have that embedded board is because of this very
topic... Although I was focusing more on PMA instrumentation
replacement, not handheld GPS's.

EridanMan wrote:

Ok, as a 25 year old "Senior" Mobile Framework engineer with a dozen
mobile games under my belt and an 200mhz ARM reference board I play
around with at work, not to mention 2 years experience with GPS and
Location services, I think I know something about this.

And Jay is right on the money... seriously.

Given capability of the hardware and the maturity of the embedded
platforms at this point, the current crop of avionics (handheld and
otherwise) isn't just substandard, its a downright embarrassment, and
it smacks of _ZERO_ effort on the part of the current producers.

I think you all underestimate the extent to which aviation has
completely fallen off the radar of the younger generation. There is
the sense that it is a dying market, and as a dying market, its not
worth investing in, so the fact that a trivial investment is all
that's needed to break into it doesn't matter. The young tech-dork
generation is all chasing after youTube and Google and social
networking and 'the next big thing'. That's how they'll (we'll) make
our cool hundred million and join the ranks of the Sillicon Valley
elite. A small side business in a 'dying' industry simply isn't what
they're watching.

BTW, the reason I have that embedded board is because of this very
topic... Although I was focusing more on PMA instrumentation
replacement, not handheld GPS's.



So can you load the 496 software onto your ARM board ?