YAWS re-incarnation

[angelacr]

YAWS Yet Another Weather Service - at yaws.mobi, as some of you may remember, was hacked into 2 days after I left the country for a 5 month stint last November. It has been off-line ever since. But it will be back-up when I return to the UK in April.

However, for those of you who need more information in your hand than you can shake a phone at, I've produced a standalone version of YAWS. (TAF, METAR, NOTAM, Flight Category, Density Altitude, ICAO lookup, Sunset, Zulu time, French AZBAs and saving favourite searches) It is an Android phone application and has been released to Google Market today.

It fully uses your phone's location service to allow one click searches for aviation data within a radius of up to 500 miles, plus it allows the more usual ICAO based searches.

Data originates from US National Weather Service, Defense Internet Notams Service (DINS) SIA France and IPPC Norway. (I would really like to be able to attribute a legal British source!)

Search Google Market for YAWS or YAWS SuperPhone. Please support it!


Angela

[S-Works]

what about an iPhone version?

[angelacr]

iPhone? What's that?

Seriously, I can't say never, but coding for Apple OS is just not on my horizon at present.

Angela

[englishal]

Andorid is far superior to the iPhone anyway ;)

[S-Works]

Possibly, but at the moment there are 48 MILLION iPhone's and rising. There are currently about 12 droid phones......

[vanHorck]

i d go for the iphone version too....

Had a 2G and now a 3Gs, and very very happy with it! Apple just sets the standards...... time and time again.

Before i was mainly a Nokia man (6310 comes to mind, ahh those were the days).

Any chance we can change your mind?

[angelacr]

@vanHorck

I may possibly be able to overcome my philosophical difficulties with Apple but the problem of getting Apple to accept an application that access US Defense Internet Notam Service (DINS) - where the DINS site says 'For DoD use only' is, I feel, pretty huge.

[englishal]

Don't you have to own a Mac to write apps for the iphone? A friend of mine is a software engineer in London and he bought one just so he could start writing them. I reckon there are more people writing more apps for Android as it is open source - even I have the Android SDK on my laptop here and was going to make a few flight planning apps just for my own use really - W&B mainly.

Anyway, thanks for the info, when I get back to the UK I'll certainly download the app for my HTC Hero....looking forward to to..

Cheers :ok:

[S-Works]

Al, I refer you to my comment above!!

[LH2]

FWIW.

I cannot comment on the relative merits of either platform as I do not own a phone of any description whatsoever--not even a fixed line.

Having said that, from what I've seen, I would never buy anything from Apple--they're good at marketing, but they're a bunch of anti-competitive ****ers, and their developer agreements are a joke. One can hardly blame a developer for wanting to steer clear of them.

40 million phones sold is, if anything, evidence that the world has at least 40 million very gullible people. You can either be a greedy bastard and take advantage of them, or you can have principles. To each their choice.

[S-Works]

Ooooh, an apple bashing thread!! Bring it on.

It's 48 MILLION according to the last Keynote in January and 250 MILLION iPods. 300 MILLION gullible people. And still rising. Amazing!!!

Over ONE BILLION application downloads and over 140,000 applications would not indicate that developers don't want to develop for apple.

They are indeed amazing at marketing, they develop products that the general public want to buy. These are not necessarily the products that a bunch of geeks hanging around on forums want......

Incoming........ ;)

[englishal]

I don't care whether someone uses an iphone or not....it is up to them. I merely stated that Andriod is actually better than the Iphone OS, and some of the android phones are better than the iphone - better battery life, smaller size, better egonomics, better features, better 3G reception....for example...

So if someone wants to spend £900 on a (sim free) iPhone, then fine, do it. I spent £350 on my HTC Hero (sim free) and wouldn't swap it for a free iphone, even if you gave me £350.

[S-Works]

My comment was not aimed at you Al, however if the cap fits a guilty conscience then feel free to wear it.... ;)

I am sure you are quite right about the iPhone, I was merely pointing out that there is a rather large base of them out there and while a developer is working on one platform that is very much a minority market it might be worth looking more at the main stream.

I personally am quite happy being one of the 48 million gullible. My apple products do exactly what they say on the tin and meet my needs. There are no doubt many other equal or better products but apple suits me. I therefore don't have the need to bash the competition.

Lets face it if apple put a logo on a rock it would sell....

[eharding]

Regarding the YAWS application: I'd like to see a demonstration of what I'm getting - either as a limited Free version or by an associated website showing screenshots of the application in action - before parting company with my £10.

Whilst a tenner is laughably cheap in terms of desktop flight planning software, the fact remains that charging that amount in a market where 95% of the applications are either free, or retail at a couple of quid, makes it look very expensive in comparison, particularly as all of the information displayed is presumably in the public domain in the first place. I note the corresponding posting about YAWS on another aviation forum I frequent disappeared without trace, at a guess because it fell foul of the advertising rules.

Regarding the Android vs. iPhone debate: personally, I think that before setting out to develop an application, the first question to ask yourself is "can I achieve the performance and UI I want using HTML5, CSS and Javascript", and in 80% if the cases the answer will be yes - at which point, the vast majority of your application logic will be portable across both platforms when delivered as a web-app. The HTML5 standard already provides for geolocation services and SQL data persistence, as well as offline application support meaning that once downloaded, the application can continue to operate without network connectivity. If you *really* need the application to be distributed through the relevant application markets, then both the iPhone and Android SDKs make it relatively painless to wrap a web-app as a native application, via the UIWebView and WebView components.

Both the iPhone and Android SDKs have their drawbacks - the iPhone principally of the ball-ache of requiring a Mac for native app development and the vagaries of the App Store, and Android because of the Google influence - in that nothing is every *really* finished and stabilised before they're off onto the next shiny thing, and that Google's concept of support is to direct you to a forum full of other people looking for support, in the hope that collectively someone, somewhere will know the answer to the question you're asking.

[englishal]

Regarding the YAWS application: I'd like to see a demonstration of what I'm getting - either as a limited Free version or by an associated website showing screenshots of the application in action - before parting company with my £10
Doesn't google market give you the option of a refund if you uninstall the app within 30 days or something? You only have this option on the first install I believe...

[eharding]

Doesn't google market give you the option of a refund if you uninstall the app within 30 days or something? You only have this option on the first install I believe...


Refunds only available 24 hours from purchase, I think. The only demonstration I've seen of someone trying to actually get a refund resulted in the App Market application failing with a forced exit - which doesn't inspire confidence.

[englishal]

Ah I see. I did it once, downloaded a prog, decided it wasn't for me and then uninstalled it and got a refund....

[angelacr]

I can understand not wishing to be cheated by an application that doesn't do as it says.

Let me assure everyone and remind you all that I'm not just around to make a quick buck. YAWS has been serving aviation data on line for free for over 7 years. In that time I've spent countless pounds on connection charges, equipment replacement and electricity. A 100w each and every hour of the year amounts to quite a number of kWhrs that I've paid so you can have free aviation data where and when you need it.

I was persuaded last year to ask for donations to support the online YAWS offering. I received a grand total of 120 pounds mainly from VPAC & LAA members for which I'm grateful. But I was exploring the possibility of putting YAWS in a server farm and hoped donations might meet the annual repeating cost. The experiment failed for whatever reasons people have for not contributing to something they benefit from. But YAWS online will continue unpaid for. I'll pick up your tab. You still will have that facility free from me for some indeterminate time yet.

So if you resent paying money for a service, forget Androids and YAWS SuperPhone, just use YAWS SmartPhone for free back online at yaws.mobi in early April. On the other hand if you want an application that is independent of the YAWS web server and is impervious from YAWS's unacceptable downtime episode this year - then get an Android. Or get an iPhone if you wish - I don't care - and use someone else's app - but you really will be happier with an Android.

I think I'm making a rather modest charge for what I consider is the best aviation weather app currently available for Android. And yes I've looked at all the free ones and the pay-for ones. IMHO they do not compete. One even ran my battery flat making endless calls to its advertising centre every couple of seconds! If that's what you want - feel free!

My reputation with YAWS should speak for itself but if anyone feels aggrieved with YAWS Superphone not meeting their expectations I promise to refund their fee I receive. And shame on you for thinking otherwise!

Angela

[angelacr]

@eharding

This link YAWS SuperPhone (http://www.androlib.com/android.application.mobi-yaws-iinm.aspx) carries a description and a couple of shots (more waiting site verification) of the application. If you need more then pm me and I can send you some that I took in development.


Angela

[angelacr]

http://qrcode.kaywa.com/img.php?s=5&d=market%3A%2F%2Fsearch%3Fq%3DYAWS

[rcalvert]

Personally, I'll be very glad to see the YAWS site back. Really well formatted for little screens and required very little navigation in order to get what you want from it.

Thanks! :ok:

[angelacr]

I am happy to confirm YAWS is now back online at yaws.mobi (http://yaws.mobi)after an enforced 5 month break.

Sincere apologies to all for its absence and I hope to welcome you back soon as a YAWS user. It's cost and advert free.

May I also remind newer pilots that there is a simple self-calculating plog to be found on the YAWS sister site activitae.com (http://activitae.com). It will help confirm your whiz wheel results and the printed output will impress the hell out of your instructor. (Well, at least it did mine - but he was easily pleased!)

I would be immensely grateful if you could spread the word that YAWS is back to your fly-mates.

@ rcalvert. Thanks!!


Angela