IOS App for Skylines?

As a retired engineer I recall the old wisdom that "better is the enemy
of good enough".

My ancient Dell Streak 5 ($100) running XCSoar (free!) gives me the same
information that your systems do though it does not bring me a
cappuccino and massage my shoulders while I fly... Sure the new
products are great, calling what works comical is simply snobbish.

On 5/4/2015 8:36 PM, Sean Fidler wrote:
Same here. iPhone 6 and the Galaxy Note 4 are far, far (the two smartphones that I use), better than the now ancient Oudie in literally every conceivable form of measure other than raw brightness. Thee difference in total brightness is very small now with the latest smartphones. SeeYou is so outdated that its almost comical. It truly pains me to use an Oudie when the far better devices are in the pocket of my glider (still illegal to use them in the USA although that might be evolving soon...).

--
Dan Marotta

On Tuesday, May 5, 2015 at 8:20:09 AM UTC-7, Dan Marotta wrote:
As a retired engineer I recall the old wisdom that "better is the
enemy of good enough".



My ancient Dell Streak 5 ($100) running XCSoar (free!) gives me the
same information that your systems do though it does not bring me a
cappuccino and massage my shoulders while I fly...* Sure the new
products are great, calling what works comical is simply snobbish.




On 5/4/2015 8:36 PM, Sean Fidler wrote:



Same here. iPhone 6 and the Galaxy Note 4 are far, far (the two smartphones that I use), better than the now ancient Oudie in literally every conceivable form of measure other than raw brightness. Thee difference in total brightness is very small now with the latest smartphones. SeeYou is so outdated that its almost comical. It truly pains me to use an Oudie when the far better devices are in the pocket of my glider (still illegal to use them in the USA although that might be evolving soon...).





--

Dan Marotta

"My ancient Dell Streak 5 ($100) running XCSoar (free!) gives me the same information that your systems do" Well, - in a word - No. There is no doubt that it costs a lot to approach perfect, but I could as easily say that I can get the same information from a pellet variometer and a sectional chart as you get on your Dell Streak. Yet the discerning person notices a difference.

Ok, so how about listing a few bullet points of the things that you can do on your iOS device (running what SW package?) that can't be done on Android running XCsoar? This isn't an attempt to be argumentative - I'd really just like to understand why one is or isn't better than (or equivalent to) the other.

Robert

On Tuesday, May 5, 2015 at 1:11:12 PM UTC-5, jfitch wrote:
On Tuesday, May 5, 2015 at 8:20:09 AM UTC-7, Dan Marotta wrote:
As a retired engineer I recall the old wisdom that "better is the
enemy of good enough".



My ancient Dell Streak 5 ($100) running XCSoar (free!) gives me the
same information that your systems do though it does not bring me a
cappuccino and massage my shoulders while I fly...* Sure the new
products are great, calling what works comical is simply snobbish.




On 5/4/2015 8:36 PM, Sean Fidler wrote:



Same here. iPhone 6 and the Galaxy Note 4 are far, far (the two smartphones that I use), better than the now ancient Oudie in literally every conceivable form of measure other than raw brightness. Thee difference in total brightness is very small now with the latest smartphones. SeeYou is so outdated that its almost comical. It truly pains me to use an Oudie when the far better devices are in the pocket of my glider (still illegal to use them in the USA although that might be evolving soon...).





--

Dan Marotta

"My ancient Dell Streak 5 ($100) running XCSoar (free!) gives me the same information that your systems do" Well, - in a word - No. There is no doubt that it costs a lot to approach perfect, but I could as easily say that I can get the same information from a pellet variometer and a sectional chart as you get on your Dell Streak. Yet the discerning person notices a difference.

On Tuesday, May 5, 2015 at 12:11:56 PM UTC-7, wrote:
Ok, so how about listing a few bullet points of the things that you can do on your iOS device (running what SW package?) that can't be done on Android running XCsoar? This isn't an attempt to be argumentative - I'd really just like to understand why one is or isn't better than (or equivalent to) the other.

Robert

On Tuesday, May 5, 2015 at 1:11:12 PM UTC-5, jfitch wrote:
On Tuesday, May 5, 2015 at 8:20:09 AM UTC-7, Dan Marotta wrote:
As a retired engineer I recall the old wisdom that "better is the
enemy of good enough".



My ancient Dell Streak 5 ($100) running XCSoar (free!) gives me the
same information that your systems do though it does not bring me a
cappuccino and massage my shoulders while I fly...* Sure the new
products are great, calling what works comical is simply snobbish..




On 5/4/2015 8:36 PM, Sean Fidler wrote:



Same here. iPhone 6 and the Galaxy Note 4 are far, far (the two smartphones that I use), better than the now ancient Oudie in literally every conceivable form of measure other than raw brightness. Thee difference in total brightness is very small now with the latest smartphones. SeeYou is so outdated that its almost comical. It truly pains me to use an Oudie when the far better devices are in the pocket of my glider (still illegal to use them in the USA although that might be evolving soon...).





--

Dan Marotta

"My ancient Dell Streak 5 ($100) running XCSoar (free!) gives me the same information that your systems do" Well, - in a word - No. There is no doubt that it costs a lot to approach perfect, but I could as easily say that I can get the same information from a pellet variometer and a sectional chart as you get on your Dell Streak. Yet the discerning person notices a difference.

Without being argumentative, give me a list of bullet points that you can do on XCSoar that can't be done with a printed chart and a slide rule.

None of these give you anything you could not have gotten before, they just do so with less pilot workload. The elegance of a superior UI is not easily distilled to bullet points. I have used both XCSoar and iGlide (iOS) for the last two years in about equal amounts. Anything you routinely do on XCSoar is more quickly accomplished (usually much more quickly) with less user attention on iGlide. In this regard SYM is a distant third. Actually standing second is Winpilot with a better UI than XCSoar or SYM even 15 years old - but it is no longer maintained so not in the running. If you put two pilots side by side and have them do some routine task on the PDA, while counting gliders flying by the canopy, you will see a big difference. An example might be adding a turnpoint between TP3 and TP4 in a task. How many click does that take you on XCSoar?

I do not want to dis XCSoar in particular, the price point is great, it does an OK job compared to others, and is feature rich if you can find them. It is not a pinnacle of UI advancement however, either due to the experience of the authors or (perhaps) the constraints of having to make it work on highly disparate hardware. I do dis SYM a bit, really no excuse for them - but of course SY itself is pretty much the same train wreck of UI, so it's inbred.

I will give you one bullet point for the iGlide/Air Vario combination that you cannot do on anything else though: instantaneous wind presented each second around your thermal circle. Which is surprisingly (maybe even alarmingly) useful.

Inserting a turnpoint into a task on XCSoar: IIRC, touch the turnpoint
on the map, press "Insert into task" from the pop up. That'll insert the
TP between my present location and the next TP. If it must be between
TP2 and TP3, I can simply wait until passing TP2 before touching the
desired TP.

As to daily use, I fly mainly tours out to 100 miles or so from the
airport rather than predefined tasks. Having said that, I rarely touch
my Streak as it always shows the information that I want to see. I
programmed these selections on the ground about 4 years ago and they
still suit my needs.

The fact that Winpilot is no longer maintained is of no consequence. If
it worked back then and wasn't "maintained", it'll still work just the
same way. Of course, it hasn't been "improved" but so what? People set
world records using that package as they will using what you're using today.


On 5/5/2015 2:59 PM, jfitch wrote:
On Tuesday, May 5, 2015 at 12:11:56 PM UTC-7, wrote:
Ok, so how about listing a few bullet points of the things that you can do on your iOS device (running what SW package?) that can't be done on Android running XCsoar? This isn't an attempt to be argumentative - I'd really just like to understand why one is or isn't better than (or equivalent to) the other.

Robert

On Tuesday, May 5, 2015 at 1:11:12 PM UTC-5, jfitch wrote:
On Tuesday, May 5, 2015 at 8:20:09 AM UTC-7, Dan Marotta wrote:
As a retired engineer I recall the old wisdom that "better is the
enemy of good enough".



My ancient Dell Streak 5 ($100) running XCSoar (free!) gives me the
same information that your systems do though it does not bring me a
cappuccino and massage my shoulders while I fly... Sure the new
products are great, calling what works comical is simply snobbish.




On 5/4/2015 8:36 PM, Sean Fidler wrote:



Same here. iPhone 6 and the Galaxy Note 4 are far, far (the two smartphones that I use), better than the now ancient Oudie in literally every conceivable form of measure other than raw brightness. Thee difference in total brightness is very small now with the latest smartphones. SeeYou is so outdated that its almost comical. It truly pains me to use an Oudie when the far better devices are in the pocket of my glider (still illegal to use them in the USA although that might be evolving soon...).





--

Dan Marotta
"My ancient Dell Streak 5 ($100) running XCSoar (free!) gives me the same information that your systems do" Well, - in a word - No. There is no doubt that it costs a lot to approach perfect, but I could as easily say that I can get the same information from a pellet variometer and a sectional chart as you get on your Dell Streak. Yet the discerning person notices a difference.
Without being argumentative, give me a list of bullet points that you can do on XCSoar that can't be done with a printed chart and a slide rule.

None of these give you anything you could not have gotten before, they just do so with less pilot workload. The elegance of a superior UI is not easily distilled to bullet points. I have used both XCSoar and iGlide (iOS) for the last two years in about equal amounts. Anything you routinely do on XCSoar is more quickly accomplished (usually much more quickly) with less user attention on iGlide. In this regard SYM is a distant third. Actually standing second is Winpilot with a better UI than XCSoar or SYM even 15 years old - but it is no longer maintained so not in the running. If you put two pilots side by side and have them do some routine task on the PDA, while counting gliders flying by the canopy, you will see a big difference. An example might be adding a turnpoint between TP3 and TP4 in a task. How many click does that take you on XCSoar?

I do not want to dis XCSoar in particular, the price point is great, it does an OK job compared to others, and is feature rich if you can find them. It is not a pinnacle of UI advancement however, either due to the experience of the authors or (perhaps) the constraints of having to make it work on highly disparate hardware. I do dis SYM a bit, really no excuse for them - but of course SY itself is pretty much the same train wreck of UI, so it's inbred.

I will give you one bullet point for the iGlide/Air Vario combination that you cannot do on anything else though: instantaneous wind presented each second around your thermal circle. Which is surprisingly (maybe even alarmingly) useful.

--
Dan Marotta

On Tuesday, May 5, 2015 at 5:14:30 PM UTC-5, Dan Marotta wrote:
Inserting a turnpoint into a task on XCSoar:* IIRC, touch the
turnpoint on the map, press "Insert into task" from the pop up.*
That'll insert the TP between my present location and the next TP.*
If it must be between TP2 and TP3, I can simply wait until passing
TP2 before touching the desired TP.



As to daily use, I fly mainly tours out to 100 miles or so from the
airport rather than predefined tasks.* Having said that, I rarely
touch my Streak as it always shows the information that I want to
see.* I programmed these selections on the ground about 4 years ago
and they still suit my needs.



The fact that Winpilot is no longer maintained is of no
consequence.* If it worked back then and wasn't "maintained", it'll
still work just the same way.* Of course, it hasn't been "improved"
but so what?* People set world records using that package as they
will using what you're using today.






On 5/5/2015 2:59 PM, jfitch wrote:



On Tuesday, May 5, 2015 at 12:11:56 PM UTC-7, wrote:


Ok, so how about listing a few bullet points of the things that you can do on your iOS device (running what SW package?) that can't be done on Android running XCsoar? This isn't an attempt to be argumentative - I'd really just like to understand why one is or isn't better than (or equivalent to) the other.

Robert

On Tuesday, May 5, 2015 at 1:11:12 PM UTC-5, jfitch wrote:


On Tuesday, May 5, 2015 at 8:20:09 AM UTC-7, Dan Marotta wrote:


As a retired engineer I recall the old wisdom that "better is the
enemy of good enough".



My ancient Dell Streak 5 ($100) running XCSoar (free!) gives me the
same information that your systems do though it does not bring me a
cappuccino and massage my shoulders while I fly...* Sure the new
products are great, calling what works comical is simply snobbish.




On 5/4/2015 8:36 PM, Sean Fidler wrote:



Same here. iPhone 6 and the Galaxy Note 4 are far, far (the two smartphones that I use), better than the now ancient Oudie in literally every conceivable form of measure other than raw brightness. Thee difference in total brightness is very small now with the latest smartphones. SeeYou is so outdated that its almost comical. It truly pains me to use an Oudie when the far better devices are in the pocket of my glider (still illegal to use them in the USA although that might be evolving soon...).





--

Dan Marotta


"My ancient Dell Streak 5 ($100) running XCSoar (free!) gives me the same information that your systems do" Well, - in a word - No. There is no doubt that it costs a lot to approach perfect, but I could as easily say that I can get the same information from a pellet variometer and a sectional chart as you get on your Dell Streak. Yet the discerning person notices a difference.



Without being argumentative, give me a list of bullet points that you can do on XCSoar that can't be done with a printed chart and a slide rule.

None of these give you anything you could not have gotten before, they just do so with less pilot workload. The elegance of a superior UI is not easily distilled to bullet points. I have used both XCSoar and iGlide (iOS) for the last two years in about equal amounts. Anything you routinely do on XCSoar is more quickly accomplished (usually much more quickly) with less user attention on iGlide. In this regard SYM is a distant third. Actually standing second is Winpilot with a better UI than XCSoar or SYM even 15 years old - but it is no longer maintained so not in the running. If you put two pilots side by side and have them do some routine task on the PDA, while counting gliders flying by the canopy, you will see a big difference. An example might be adding a turnpoint between TP3 and TP4 in a task. How many click does that take you on XCSoar?

I do not want to dis XCSoar in particular, the price point is great, it does an OK job compared to others, and is feature rich if you can find them. It is not a pinnacle of UI advancement however, either due to the experience of the authors or (perhaps) the constraints of having to make it work on highly disparate hardware. I do dis SYM a bit, really no excuse for them - but of course SY itself is pretty much the same train wreck of UI, so it's inbred.

I will give you one bullet point for the iGlide/Air Vario combination that you cannot do on anything else though: instantaneous wind presented each second around your thermal circle. Which is surprisingly (maybe even alarmingly) useful.





--

Dan Marotta

Right on, Dan. Flying with WinPilot Pro on an Avier I'm not missing any hand-holding and "support". It still works as good as it did back then.

On Wednesday, May 6, 2015 at 8:47:51 AM UTC-7, wrote:
On Tuesday, May 5, 2015 at 5:14:30 PM UTC-5, Dan Marotta wrote:
Inserting a turnpoint into a task on XCSoar:* IIRC, touch the
turnpoint on the map, press "Insert into task" from the pop up.*
That'll insert the TP between my present location and the next TP.*
If it must be between TP2 and TP3, I can simply wait until passing
TP2 before touching the desired TP.



As to daily use, I fly mainly tours out to 100 miles or so from the
airport rather than predefined tasks.* Having said that, I rarely
touch my Streak as it always shows the information that I want to
see.* I programmed these selections on the ground about 4 years ago
and they still suit my needs.



The fact that Winpilot is no longer maintained is of no
consequence.* If it worked back then and wasn't "maintained", it'll
still work just the same way.* Of course, it hasn't been "improved"
but so what?* People set world records using that package as they
will using what you're using today.






On 5/5/2015 2:59 PM, jfitch wrote:



On Tuesday, May 5, 2015 at 12:11:56 PM UTC-7, wrote:


Ok, so how about listing a few bullet points of the things that you can do on your iOS device (running what SW package?) that can't be done on Android running XCsoar? This isn't an attempt to be argumentative - I'd really just like to understand why one is or isn't better than (or equivalent to) the other.

Robert

On Tuesday, May 5, 2015 at 1:11:12 PM UTC-5, jfitch wrote:


On Tuesday, May 5, 2015 at 8:20:09 AM UTC-7, Dan Marotta wrote:


As a retired engineer I recall the old wisdom that "better is the
enemy of good enough".



My ancient Dell Streak 5 ($100) running XCSoar (free!) gives me the
same information that your systems do though it does not bring me a
cappuccino and massage my shoulders while I fly...* Sure the new
products are great, calling what works comical is simply snobbish.




On 5/4/2015 8:36 PM, Sean Fidler wrote:



Same here. iPhone 6 and the Galaxy Note 4 are far, far (the two smartphones that I use), better than the now ancient Oudie in literally every conceivable form of measure other than raw brightness. Thee difference in total brightness is very small now with the latest smartphones. SeeYou is so outdated that its almost comical. It truly pains me to use an Oudie when the far better devices are in the pocket of my glider (still illegal to use them in the USA although that might be evolving soon...).





--

Dan Marotta


"My ancient Dell Streak 5 ($100) running XCSoar (free!) gives me the same information that your systems do" Well, - in a word - No. There is no doubt that it costs a lot to approach perfect, but I could as easily say that I can get the same information from a pellet variometer and a sectional chart as you get on your Dell Streak. Yet the discerning person notices a difference.



Without being argumentative, give me a list of bullet points that you can do on XCSoar that can't be done with a printed chart and a slide rule.

None of these give you anything you could not have gotten before, they just do so with less pilot workload. The elegance of a superior UI is not easily distilled to bullet points. I have used both XCSoar and iGlide (iOS) for the last two years in about equal amounts. Anything you routinely do on XCSoar is more quickly accomplished (usually much more quickly) with less user attention on iGlide. In this regard SYM is a distant third. Actually standing second is Winpilot with a better UI than XCSoar or SYM even 15 years old - but it is no longer maintained so not in the running. If you put two pilots side by side and have them do some routine task on the PDA, while counting gliders flying by the canopy, you will see a big difference. An example might be adding a turnpoint between TP3 and TP4 in a task. How many click does that take you on XCSoar?

I do not want to dis XCSoar in particular, the price point is great, it does an OK job compared to others, and is feature rich if you can find them. It is not a pinnacle of UI advancement however, either due to the experience of the authors or (perhaps) the constraints of having to make it work on highly disparate hardware. I do dis SYM a bit, really no excuse for them - but of course SY itself is pretty much the same train wreck of UI, so it's inbred.

I will give you one bullet point for the iGlide/Air Vario combination that you cannot do on anything else though: instantaneous wind presented each second around your thermal circle. Which is surprisingly (maybe even alarmingly) useful.





--

Dan Marotta

Right on, Dan. Flying with WinPilot Pro on an Avier I'm not missing any hand-holding and "support". It still works as good as it did back then.

The theory that "if it works it will continue" to only is valid in a static system. If anything around it changes, then it may break, if unsupported it stays broken. There are a number of bugs in the Avier version of Winpilot that will never be fixed. Too bad, because it several areas (such as its thermal assistant or its depiction of Flarm traffic), it still has no equal)..

Hey, I'll post my favorite whine about most of the current packages.
I used SoarPilot a lot up until a few years ago, when I finally got
fed up with the crappy Palm connectors. However, SoarPilot gave you
final glide information in a table, showing the arrival height (or
glidepath delta) and target speeds for a range of MC settings.
It gave me a better indication as to how much cushion I had in my
glide. The little green/red arrows in XCSoar and SYM tell you that
you can make it, but you don't have any feel for what running into
some sink will do to you.

Matt

On Tuesday, May 5, 2015 at 4:55:07 PM UTC-5, wrote:
Hey, I'll post my favorite whine about most of the current packages.
I used SoarPilot a lot up until a few years ago, when I finally got
fed up with the crappy Palm connectors. However, SoarPilot gave you
final glide information in a table, showing the arrival height (or
glidepath delta) and target speeds for a range of MC settings.
It gave me a better indication as to how much cushion I had in my
glide. The little green/red arrows in XCSoar and SYM tell you that
you can make it, but you don't have any feel for what running into
some sink will do to you.

Matt

Hi Matt,

I'm with you on the SoarPilot. I miss that final glide table. That was a VERY useful feature. I stopped using SoarPilot last year and switched over to Tophat(XCSoar derivative for those who may not know) on the Kobo ereader. The eInk displays beat anything out there for sunlight readability. Tophat is simple and reasonably intuitive. Easiest system so far to set up, both hardware and software. So far it does everything I want. It has the one feature that was missing from SoarPilot - being able to select a waypoint by touching it on the screen.

To keep this on topic: iGlide and IOS based soaring software interests me, but until the sunlight readability of screens on the smart phones and tablets (of any OS) get better, I'm gonna stay with my Kobo.