Navionics on an iPad - Beware

lauchiemb · 16 September 2010, 16:03

This is an awesome piece of kit which knocks the spots off any small to medium sized chartplotter.

I used it happily up and down the coast and was impressed with how it managed to track me when I was out of mobile coverage. I decided that it would be very suitable to use on long journeys for emergencies.

When I was up in the Hebrides, however, I found that the GPS does not work at all when in an area with definately no mobile coverage. I am not sure that I would feel reassured when out at sea, out of sight of land, or with low cloud, and not being able to use the iPad to work out where I was.

So for all of you that wish to buy the fab £15 app instead of a chart plotter, just beware!

Pikey Dave · 16 September 2010, 16:15

Why would mobile phone coverage affect the GPS? I'm not familiar with the ipad, though I have seen the navionics app, but I thought it was standalone.

HUMBER P4VWL · 16 September 2010, 20:34

Wouldn't take an iPad on a boat anyway!!

Lot of money to get salty, even in a cabin you can get spray drifting in.

Starovich · 16 September 2010, 21:35

depends on the version of the Ipad.

Bigmuz7 · 16 September 2010, 22:10

What ever happened to the sun .. moon and stars ..intuition .... and............ the VHF

Erin · 17 September 2010, 08:40

My understanding is that most phone based GPS's use 'assisted' GPS which relies on signals from the phone masts to help triangulate their position. This can be turned off but slows down the acquisition time tremendously. It may be that the iPAD needs to be held in a particular orientation to get good satelite signals and may therefore appear not to work when out of range of a phone mast.

Starovich · 17 September 2010, 09:00

Quote:

Originally Posted by Erin

My understanding is that most phone based GPS's use 'assisted' GPS which relies on signals from the phone masts to help triangulate their position. This can be turned off but slows down the acquisition time tremendously. It may be that the iPAD needs to be held in a particular orientation to get good satelite signals and may therefore appear not to work when out of range of a phone mast.

Quote:

depends on the version of the Ipad.

Some only get "gps" from phone mast signals, some have gps built in, but yes they get a faster response from using the asisted mode. You can I believe add a blue tooth gps but you woud need to crack it to allow it.

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/apple/appl...es-and-no/5898

http://www.tuaw.com/2010/05/11/add-g...h-btstack-gps/