Finding My Inner Geek – The iPhone Navionics App
I am not normally attracted to new technology – being forced to upgrade to a new operating system or browser usually involves some swearing as I discover new features I don’t care about and features I liked that don’t work anymore. But, I am so impressed with the new iPhone I bought this summer I may be in danger of finding my inner geek. Aside from great features I use all the time like the GPS (with maps in the car) and internet tethering that allows me to connect my laptop to the internet through the cell network, the marine app I purchased for $10.00 is absolutely awesome.
The marine app is made by Navionics. For that amazingly low price, I was able to choose marine charts for British Columbia and a lot of the features that are standard for navigation systems that are 500 times the price.
There are some obvious detractors relative to more expensive technology. The size of the screen is not as convenient as other systems or laptops. Although one of the innovations with iPhone and iPods is the ability to zoom in and out by sliding your fingers across the screen and this makes screen size a little less painful. I also would like a knot meter, something I use my hand-held Garmin GPS for all the time.
There is another marine app for the IPhone called iNavX which has features that allow you to download a wider array of charts and also to upload and download waypoints and tracks. Having the ability to chart on a different chart plotter and then download the route would be useful as using the route feature is challenging on the small iPhone screen, but the cost of the iNavX was $50.00 and the cost for just one of the charts I needed was an additional $169.00.
The only other negative were a few issues I had when I originally downloaded the app and discovered I had to download using my laptop because of the size. As a novice user I had a few issues trying to understand how then to transfer it back to my iPhone.
Considering the $10.00 price I almost hate to say anything negative as the bang for buck is fantastic. All the functionality below is available from the main screen.
GPS - The GPS functionality seems to work fairly quickly. When I touched the GPS button on the screen, my position in the marina was found within a couple of seconds and certainly within feet of my actual position.
Search - touching search calls up a selection of categories including marinas, tides and marina repairs. I tried searching for the main Gulf Islands passages I use (Gabriola, Active and Porlier) and found them all. The view changed to the chart area of the passage and then I was able to touch the T symbol to get the tide information. Touching the Details button gave me the tide table information for the passage
Track - You can save track information by touching Track at the beginning of the trip and then at the end.
Distance - You can measure distance between two points.
Waypoints - You can route plan using the waypoint feature. You touch waypoint and then the place on the chart you want the waypoint and then scroll to the next waypoint. Touching Waypoint at the end of the route calls up a screen where you can save the route.
The interface is fairly intuitive but if you do need help there is a user guide that provides some guidance.