10 reasons not to replace your plotter with an iPad

[Bruce Flinn]

Since no-one has stepped up to edit the iPhone thread, lets try completing this list
Bruce Flinn
PATIENCE 30U 399
Halifax NS Canada

12 reasons not to replace your plotter with an iPad

1. Unproven in marine environment/my dedicated marine gear must be better
2. I tune out when people talk about apps.
3. My twelve year old Standard/Raymarine plotter works just fine most of the time
4. Too trendy/Apple corporate identity/corporate strategy annoys me
5. I don't want to have to lift my polarized sunglasses to view it in sunlight
6. I don't like to hold my plotter in my lap while reclining in cockpit or cabin
7. Apple is not struggling for corporate survival like Raymarine
8. I refuse to pay for downloaded software no matter how cheap and easy it is to configure
9. I don't trust touch screens/Garmin now makes a nifty touchscreen plotter
10. Pretty soon I will be able to buy a Standard plotter with many of the features of the iPad and
prices seem to be falling quickly
11.
12.

[Joseph L. Tierney]

#11: If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.
Joe Tierney Allegro NS33 #64 Annapolis, MD

[Capt. Mike]

12. Water and consumer electronics don't always play well together. Though I did manage to put my Apple Shuffle into the washing machine twice. The first time it worked after it came out. The second time not so much.:)
Sent from on board BIANKA
http://biankablog.blogspot.com

[John iscaro]

Come on Mike with the electic boat.........

--
John Iscaro / Chief Engineer
Greenwich Country Club
203-869-1000 Work
203-627-2864  Cell
203-236-1909  Fax

[John iscaro]

oh yeah, one more thing.  would we buy a nonsuch if we knew they would go out of business.

[John iscaro]

Sorry Bruce,  I can give you 20 reasons why it makes sense..... lol.  I can also put movies and podcasts and make wifi phone calls, look at all my old sailing pictures,  listen to music,  oh yeah and plot my next trip to the next watering hole.   Think Apple might outlast Raymarine in the corp. struggle.

On Wed, Jun 30, 2010 at 9:23 AM, Bruce Flinn <abf...@eastlink.ca> wrote:

[Capt. Mike]

Nonsuch out of business? Nonsense I say! I still see plenty of them on the water. :) I'd still buy another one today if I were in the market and did not already have one. As for Apple I loved my match book sized 2nd Generation Apple shuffle. Had over ten hours of music on it. Trouble is Apple stopped selling and making them after only two or three years on the market.

Mike

Sent from on board BIANKA
http://biankablog.blogspot.com

---

From: John iscaro <jo...@ISCARO.COM>

Sender: Nonsuch Yacht Owners Discussion List <NONS...@listserv.aol.com>

Date: Wed, 30 Jun 2010 09:49:45 -0400

To: <NONS...@listserv.aol.com>

ReplyTo: Nonsuch Yacht Owners Discussion List <NONS...@listserv.aol.com>, John iscaro <jo...@ISCARO.COM>

Subject: Re: 10 reasons not to replace your plotter with an iPad

[John Grainger]

In life as in sailing I always think out 5 then 10 years ahead.

basically the life of stuff I currently buy and own has a design life of 5-10 years.

A chart plotter with all the kit, installation etc. is $????? so maybe the cost is $3-500 a year based on a 10 year life.

My sail $500-1000 etc.

We often forget this simple fact.

We also know Raymarine as a supplier to the recreational marine industry is going,----- low cost OEM stuff to the reducing US marine new boat market.

Won't be here in a decade. Their core technology is now two decades old, and was just the digitization of the old analog dial.

Same impeller and transducer etc.

So a $300 dollar unit is always better then a $3000 unit,  you can junk it every other year and upgrade.

Remember everything we use on a sail boat is a modification of a higher volume usage elsewhere, realized even our blocks and fiddles were originally design for Aircraft cable etc.

As drive by cable became drive by wire , the technology just migrated to a small  opportunistic marine shop somewhere.

With this in mind, I suspect that very soon we will have a solid state Minimac type sealed unit. a flat screen   Ipad with velcro on the bulkhead.

Has to come. So if we start to use the current technology accept it etc. then someone like a Raymarine who sees their world crumbling will package a new marine use multitask unit.

I see mylar hair thin sheets of photo electric non skid sheets-charging  lythium auto batteries, a Ballard power cell, and flat mylar screens on the bulkhead all Blue ray.

And when all the apps get sorted into one unit, then the mind races.

Till then, i will do as every summer, slip my mooring, head out of the club and turn left, for the great beyond.

Maybe at some point I will turn on instruments But if the fog comes I might now use my phone.

Enjoy 

John F Grainger

John F. Grainger

Proprietor

Cooper-Grainger Canada Inc.

Technical Bearing Sales Ltd.

H.P.M. Inc.

Gam on Yachting.

[Jon Matthews]

#12 : When I push the red button on my HS CPV350
(with integrated GPS and VHF and other functions)
the VHF distress call contains position and ident etc;
but the 911 iPhone call is
location ambiguous and may be out of range.

--------------------------------------------------
From: "Joseph L. Tierney" <tiern...@verizon.net>
Sent: Wednesday, June 30, 2010 9:38 AM
To: <NONS...@LISTSERV.AOL.COM>
Subject: Re: 10 reasons not to replace your plotter with an iPad

[Ray Barrick]

RE: #5

Polarized sunglasses are is fine if iPad is in landscape mode. Brightness
is fine. iPhone, not so good, but still visible. Likewise with my Garmin
it is fine in landscape mode, but if I look at Garmin sideways there too is
a problem with the polarization.

Ray Barrick
Mercator 30C 208
Toronto ON Canada

[R. D. Young]

Well put John. It makes as little sense to reject new technology out of hand as it does to rely totally on it. I have a laptop set up for electronic navigation and charting but I also have my old Garmin and paper charts too.
--
David Young
Bay Cat
30U #402
Suttons Bay (currently in Beaver Island, MI)

[Bruce Flinn]

I'm with you up to the BluRay mylar flatscreen monitors, John.
I would prefer a retina controlled heads up display inside my polarized prescription sunglasses ; )
Bruce Flinn
PATIENCE 30U399
Halifax NS Canada

[Chris Inniss]

I'd like to see a robotic impellor changer.

Chris Inniss
30U 324 Peace on Earth
Chicago

Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T

[Philip R. LeVine]

Closest is speed seal. After putting it in changing impeller is simple and
quick.
Phil LeVine, MeSays

--------------------------------------------------
From: "Chris Inniss" <chris_...@msn.com>
Sent: Wednesday, June 30, 2010 11:33 AM
To: <NONS...@LISTSERV.AOL.COM>

[Philip R. LeVine]

One of my friends bought a new 34 foot boat three years ago. The Raymarine wheel pilot died three times and it was replaced free. Now he is on Number 4-crapped out last week.

Maybe our old Autohelm auto pilots were much better. No trouble in six years.

Phil LeVine, MeSays

From: John Grainger

Sent: Wednesday, June 30, 2010 7:55 AM

To: NONS...@LISTSERV.AOL.COM

[John Grainger]

Well we know the X-5 has just been a tragic piece of kit. Is it this?

I have reams of correspondence claiming how they just break in the box prior to installation.

just don't buy them. They don't work.

And yes the older stuff was just better built.

But it is the consumer who demands the lowest cost and same price as a decade ago etc.

So we get what you pay for.

I have a compact 286 running autocad 2 that still works well and does it job, paid $2500 probably 25 years ago.

Have a trash box of maybe 4 laptops and notebooks that i have bought in  the past 5yrs that don't work.

Total cost less then the $2500.

It aint complex.

John f Grainger

[Bill Spencer]

One more reason not to replace your plotter with an iThing is that it
can't be interfaced with your other instruments. Or can it?

Does the iPad have a serial output port that can be configured
through software to mimic the NMEA interface?