The Marine iPad . . .

[PeregrineSea]

Thanks! I will take a look at it -one of the things the IPad can do easily is act as a repeater / remote for either pc or MAC - I use it with windows 7 on a MacMini, and it is great with MaxSea Time Zero. I am looking for alternatives for stand alone IPad.

[GPSNavX]

iNavX is happy to receive the GPS and other NMEA data over WiFi (TCP or UDP).

[hoppy]

Originally Posted by hoppy

Installed

Not looking too good on the viewing in sunlight front

Ohhh, what a waste of money this was

On sunny and bright overcast days this set-up was pretty much unusable. Coming in and out of harbours I found myself spending way too much time shading the ipad to see it and not enough time keeping an eye on the surroundings. I lost track of the number of times I took the ipad into the cabin to see the display as even the shade of the boats spray hood offered little assistance.

Quite frankly, I would have spent less time trying to study the GPS mapping by bypassing the iPad and going straight to the nav table and looking at the Garmin mounted there.

When I can figure out how to mount it under the cockpit table, I'm going to get a Raymarine C90W or E90W. I assume that their screens are just as good as the Garmin screen I had on my old Searay which only needed a little "hand shade" to cure the direct sunlight viewing problem.

I think I will relegate the ipad to internal use only.

[PeregrineSea]

I agree - The Ipad is useful but relying on it outside the cabin is problematic, and not the best solution. It is of value, and some of the apps are intriguing and even valuable for navigation a cruising. Her is one for worldwide AIS tracking and monitoring that I think is great - MarineTraffic for iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad on the iTunes App Store

[Chipg]

An updated iOS 4.3.3 came out the other day, I'm seeing battery and gps improvements on an iPad gen 1 over the previous iOS release. There is also a jailbreak out for it.

[ActiveCaptain]

I think that until the iPad or iPhone (or Droids, Blackberry PlayBooks, webOS or Windows Phone 7 devices) are sunlight visible and less of a problem with water splash, they aren't the right product for primary navigation. Those environments are best for traditional chartplotters.

The "Post-PC" products are best used for backup navigation, perhaps, and other uses. I don't mean that these devices shouldn't be used on boat. Far from it. I think they have fantastic uses that greatly improve the safety, planning, and enjoyment. They're just not primary navigation tools.

[pteron]

Originally Posted by ActiveCaptain

I think that until the iPad or iPhone (or Droids, Blackberry PlayBooks, webOS or Windows Phone 7 devices) are sunlight visible and less of a problem with water splash, they aren't the right product for primary navigation.

You may find you wait a long time for them to be sunlight visible. A TFT LCD needs a very powerful backlight to be sunlight visible and backlights eat battery power. As time to empty is an important spec for most people, you'll find that the manufacturers do not want to increase the backlight power. We need a manufacturer to allow increased backlight power when connected to external power.

[ActiveCaptain]

Originally Posted by pteron

You may find you wait a long time for them to be sunlight visible.

New technology has a funny way of changing the game. Check out:
http://www.pixelqi.com/

There's even an Android tab using it:
http://www.notionink.com/

There are surely other technologies coming too.

I'm not sure any of this is completely prime time yet. And again, there are fantastic uses for an iPad at the helm if it's protected now. iPad use will skyrocket on trawlers for a while because the environment lends itself to a protected helm area. I just don't think running off and buying an iPad to display nautical charts is going to make anyone happy or using the iPad until and unless they find other uses for the iPad.

[PeregrineSea]

Been looking at this a lot since I got and Ipad2. First it won't replace my Kindle when I just want to read. I get Bluewater sailing digitally now - and magazines are great on IPad. Netflix is great too when I have wifi or am in cellular range (I have a cellular dongle attached to a Cradlepoint device for wfi on the boat).

There are other good marine navigation apps out there too - but it is an inside the boat device. One of the most useful apps allows remote control of pc or mac if everything is on the same wifi network - and in works. Here is a picture of my Ipad 2 showing Maxsea Time Zero in full screen, with Maxsea running on the MacMini I have a the chart table - and you can control everything - the IPAd as full remote! Now this is useful!

[pteron]

Agreed there are new technologies coming and I was initially excited by the notionink device, but it appears to switch to monochrome in transflective mode which isn't much use for a chart plotter.

[dbluefield]

Just sailed 200 NM down the long island sound and up the Hudson with IPad 2 & older IPhone - navx worked great - I found the glare useable - put my back to the sun. Garmon screen wasn't much better IMO.

Great stuff!

Best,

Mack

[Cotemar]

Been having a ball using my iPad2 for navigation. Mostly use it at the Nav station with the remote auto pilot, but with these RAM mounts It can be moved to the helm in just seconds.

At the nav station I use the RAM mounts with the industrial suction cups like the ones they lift windshields with. They are perfect for this and I just remove them in seconds when not in use.

I navigate with:

Memory-Map-Pocket Nav $19.99
Pro-Nice Raster charts, Great dashboard display with all the boat vitals. Import & export .gpx marks, route & tracks. Loads all files and charts by WiFi.
Save and e-mail routes. Follow route and track navigation with all the vitals displayed. Easy new route creation and editing. Very nice route navigation program
Con’s – No tide & currents
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/pocketnav/id373365691?mt=8

[mblowes]

Looking at getting my gribs via a satellite phone / saildocs. This will get a file with an attachment into my email. i can then import this to macenc.

Is there anyway to get that into inavx on either an iPad or iPhone - these appear to only work by importing from itraverse.com : which will be too much bandwidth for my sat phone setup

[OffsoonGreg]

What would be the best Apps to use in Austraila ??

[GPSNavX]

The next release of iNavX (pending at Apple now) will support the importing of GPX, KML and GRIB files via email (in addition to X-Traverse).