Thoughts about AIS

[colemj]

Originally Posted by Pelagic

I was to.... It comes only as an Apple App ... Not downloadable PDF for other formats....

Wow. I don't know what to say about that other than it further cements my opinion about all things Raymarine. I have been trying so hard to change that opinion, but they refuse to help me with it…

Who wants to go to their chartplotter to read something in the manual? Who only reads their manual when they are actively navigating?

Mark

[Pelagic]

RM seems to have some marketing/development arrangement with Apple to promote IPad synergy so that appears to be their target market.

[goboatingnow]

Originally Posted by Pelagic

I was to.... It comes only as an Apple App ... Not downloadable PDF for other formats.... Read the RM Forums and heard similar complaints.
Was a pain since the new Hong Kong install had some configuration conflicts that was difficult to sort out in the Philippines via the onscreen manual
That is another reason why I like Furuno

The manual for all e series is available onlive from raymarine as a PDF like all its manuals. Where do people get these myths

Dave

[goboatingnow]

Originally Posted by Pelagic

RM seems to have some marketing/development arrangement with Apple to promote IPad synergy so that appears to be their target market.

Don't listen to nonsense
DAve

[Pelagic]

Back in March, I could not download PDF for the latest RM Hybrid MFD


http://raymarine.ning.com/m/discussi...ATopic%3A99946

Only via iBook
http://www.raymarine.com/view/?id=3303

The RM forums had lots of questions then which they seemed to have addressed

[goboatingnow]

You could get the PDF certainly in 2013. The discussion you referenced confirms that the tech response from raymarine is from June 2013

I visit this site regulary. I have never see Apple only documentation on raymarine products. I suspect its pure misinformation. The confusion seems to have arise when raymarine started supporting iBooks.

Dave

[Pelagic]

This was a one time thing for me Dave as I was delivering a friends boat and it arrived with a bunch of config problems.

Thought it was just me till I found a number of complaints and IPad advice.

Probably just me no knowing the RM site

[monte]

well its not hard to confirm either way
Raymarine Manuals and Product Documents
perhaps you just looked at the top icons and didn't notice the red link below that downloads the manual in PDF.

[goboatingnow]

Originally Posted by Pelagic

This was a one time thing for me Dave as I was delivering a friends boat and it arrived with a bunch of config problems.

Thought it was just me till I found a number of complaints and IPad advice.

Probably just me no knowing the RM site

Yes. At times it's quite obscure

Dave

[Pelagic]

I was rushing to solve problems then.... So I take the blame.

I am curious about regular users opinion of the "touchscreen" MFD.

The delivery crew from HK to Philippines had both the AIS and Autopilot intermittently fail enroute, then fail altogether.

When I was working on it, I did find some setup mistakes which I believe could more easily have happened when they were using a touchscreen to fix the problem at sea.

I guess that is why they provide a lockscreen function and a warning to use it when rough.

I did fix the problems and it worked great on my delivery to Cebu

But...Is using that touchscreen a real concern when rough ?

[goboatingnow]

Originally Posted by Pelagic

I was rushing to solve problems then.... So I take the blame.

I am curious about regular users opinion of the "touchscreen" MFD.

The delivery crew from HK to Philippines had both the AIS and Autopilot intermittently fail enroute, then fail altogether.

When I was working on it, I did find some setup mistakes which I believe could more easily have happened when they were using a touchscreen to fix the problem at sea.

I guess that is why they provide a lockscreen function and a warning to use it when rough.

I did fix the problems and it worked great on my delivery to Cebu

But...Is using that touchscreen a real concern when rough ?

Personally I hate touchscreens on a boat. It's especially notable on things like RIBs, it gets worse the bigger the screen, as you have to use an unsupported finger to activate stuff.

Dave

[monte]

ours seems OK. We had an E125W and now an e125 which has a few less hard buttons then the E125W but most touch functions can be also made using the hard buttons and dial as well. It is worth setting up the screen for touch as it can be annoying touching a mark and the screen things its 10mm away. difficult to make a route that way...or touching an AIS target (getting the thread back on course)

[DoubleWhisky]

Originally Posted by Pelagic

I was rushing to solve problems then.... So I take the blame.

I am curious about regular users opinion of the "touchscreen" MFD.

The delivery crew from HK to Philippines had both the AIS and Autopilot intermittently fail enroute, then fail altogether.

When I was working on it, I did find some setup mistakes which I believe could more easily have happened when they were using a touchscreen to fix the problem at sea.

I guess that is why they provide a lockscreen function and a warning to use it when rough.

I did fix the problems and it worked great on my delivery to Cebu

But...Is using that touchscreen a real concern when rough ?

I do not understand this all "touchscreen mania".
In lively conditions they are definitely more difficult to use than keyboard and rotary knob operated. And when i really need to see what is on the screen, I do not want be forced to use the screen for communication with the device. I want to be able to wear gloves of my choice when it is cold. I do not want to scratch the screen by the salt residue from the spray. I do not want to have a sreen fingerprinted (some of us need the hands to apply the sunscreen from time to time).
In the matter of fact I believe the touchscreens are definitely inferior in the cockpit and not at all superior at the chart table.

Cheers

Tomasz

[colemj]

I think most touchscreen plotters also allow the use of a wireless mouse or trackball - no? I recently was on a boat that was using a handheld "mouse" - looked like a small pistol remote that you held in your hand with a very good control nib on it and trigger buttons. Hard to explain, but it was imminently useable - even if the boat was jumping to and fro.

On the other hand, I hate using our iPod Touch (the only touch interface we have). Looks like an iPad is in our future soon, so maybe I will get use to this whole smear my fingers around a communal grease slide thingy while trying to precisely get my point across to it using my (frequently) bandaged, resin/sealant covered and superglued-cut fingers.

Mark

[Sandero]

I think the larger touch screens are basically stupid and there are many reasons that they don't work in a marine environment... separate mechanical buttons make more sense. I am not pleased with this development.