I have been fairly happy for a few years with Navionics on Android tablets. I have had a few gripes -- one upgrade broke their tide display, for example -- but they fixed the bugs and I still find Navionics very usable.
Having committed to the
Furuno First Watch wifi
radar unit, I am now forced to buy an iPad (grrr). I have a very small chart table area so I can't be cluttering up the place with more displays, and a very small
budget so I can't afford the big fancy multifunction screens. So using the iPad as a mobile, configurable display has its appeal.
Now I face the big decision: which app to buy for the iPad? Should I stick with Navionics, the devil I know? Or choose a new nav tool? I imagine this topic comes up regularly, sorry about the repetition, but the features keep changing...
In the past I just accepted the tablet as a standalone GPS/charting device. I used it for route planning, large-screen overview to supplement my handheld
Garmin, and tide predictions. Now I see at least 2 new interesting possibilities.
As I do my
research, I discover that the iPad apps offer new options like... possibly integration with the
Furuno wifi
radar so I could overlay radar onto my chart (Nobeltec TimeZero); possibly integration with NMEA/wifi hubs so I could display all my instrument data on one
screen (iNavX). Maybe I could even make my tillerpilot steer a
GPS course!
So I am now really perplexed. If anyone else has done all this
research recently, could you share the short version? I think there are only 4 contenders:
iNavX
Navionics
TimeZero
iSailor
and in trawling their websites I'm overwhelmed by verbiage and still trying to figure out which can do what and how much it will cost me. I'm just interested in NMEA wifi integration (display and
autopilot send) and Furuno 1st Watch integration. I don't really need
google earth aerial imagery or 3 d projection, I'm quite comfortable reading paper
charts :-) I don't need any fancy "guide to services and
marinas," this is my home ground and I know pretty much everyone out there. I do absolutely need tide/current prediction as this is a major factor in these
parts. I do need full offline operation as I have no form of
internet or phone connectivity when cruising.
I
cruise the Canadian
west coast so free NOAA
charts are not an option; I will have to buy charts no matter what. Can I port my Navionics charts into an iPad app? I have no idea. If anyone can educate me a bit on this bewildering new world, I'd really appreciate it. Every time I start googling around trying to understand all my options, I get overwhelmed and give up :-) gee, I'm starting to feel my age.