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Old 21-07-2011, 05:14   #1
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Nav Program for Apple Mac

Hi Cruisers, hoping someone can advise me on suitable navigation program suitable for Mac notebook and for use mainly Australian coastal waters and Pacific......Harry "FUTURE DAYS" Nelson Bay Australia
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Old 21-07-2011, 06:04   #2
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Re: Nav program for Apple Mac

GPS NAV X - excellent rock solid , wonderful support from its developer (or MAC ENC a version for Electronic Charts). GPS NAV X

Polar navy is also an option. Polar Navy

Of course you can run emulation on your MAc and run any Windows based program as well, if you really must.

And of course OPEN CPN is also available on MAc.

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Old 21-07-2011, 06:50   #3
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Originally Posted by Factor
PS - MAc vs PC, CQR versus Rocna, and Multi versus mono, Guns or No Guns. These are always wonderful threads.
LOL

I have Mac ENC but I have not had it on the boat yet.
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Old 21-07-2011, 07:21   #4
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Re: Nav program for Apple Mac

Harry, first take into consideration what charts you will be using. That may influence your decision. Though I'm not sure if all programs will accept all charts or not. Just something to consider.

I use Polar View with the free NOAA charts for the US on my Mac. I'm very pleased with this low cost solution for my needs.

Polar View has an excellent color palette with the vector charts. It's not demanding on CPU or graphics resources and runs quite fast.


My second choice would be MacEnc.

OpenCPN is immature at this point on the Mac, but getting better.


Also, give very careful consideration to how you will protect your laptop from water intrusion. Especially if you wish to have the nav software up and running while underway. It's turned out to be harder than anticipated for me.

At this point it's clear I would have been wiser to go ahead and add a new chartplotter at the helm to replace an out of date monochrome Garmin. Damn hindsight.
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Old 21-07-2011, 08:09   #5
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Re: Nav program for Apple Mac

I use MacENC and am pretty happy with it with the free NOAA ENC charts. It hooks pretty easily to my Maretron USB gateway and was essentially plug and play. I am learning all the ins and outs so I won't comment on features I would like to have as I may just not have found them yet.

Jim
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Old 21-07-2011, 08:46   #6
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Re: Nav program for Apple Mac

If you can get free BSB or S-57 formatted charts for Australia (where I'm assuming you want to use the Mac), then PolarView can't be beat. It's especially nice since you can try it for real for free for a month.

If you have to purchase charts, I'd look at MacENC with Navionics charts versus the cost of S-57 charts from ChartWorld for PolarView.

You can also use the Mac under Boot Camp to run Windows. That opens up a lot of other higher end products. They'll cost more but will allow more advanced functionality. The Mac makes a really excellent PC and I run multiple PC navigation products that way.
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Old 21-07-2011, 18:49   #7
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Re: Nav Program for Apple Mac

Thanks ever so much for the wonderful response guys, I will take some time and look at all your great suggestions.....cheers Harry (Future Days)
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