iPhone aviation applications, what do you recommend & use?
 

All right then, a fair few of you must have iPhones by now, so which applications have you found that are really helpful to aircrew?

The Met office radar rainfall website with animation is great for getting a good picture of the weather and how its moving.

Also ipint is great for amusing pilots in the bar!!!

ZA

AeroWeather is the one I use a lot. It shows your selected METARS and TAFS fully decoded and readable - much quicker than logging on to the Met Office site, having to do a lot of finger work. It also shows whether the METAR is VFR, MVFR, IFR or whatever.

Be warned though - sync your iphone at the wrong time and you can loose all your apps. You can download them again if you remember the names (or look up your purchase history) but any data stored is lost forever. Sometimes you even have to pay again, other times the apps are no longer available.

I have PilotWhizz which would come in handy if I was not able to use my PC to plan my flights.

SullysFlight is a good one for keeping current on bird strike / engine failure procedures.

Also - Flight Control is pretty addictive. From playing that, I can't see what all the fuss is about re: ATC and stress :rolleyes:

:ok:

Another thread running here

http://www.pprune.org/military-aircr...lications.html

Is it still just on one network, I think O2?

Are there plans to open to other network providers?

You can already have an iPhone on other networks if you so really want to....

http://img9.imageshack.us/img9/5512/iphoneygi.jpg

Shunter, you need to check your emails. ;)

Played with friends iphone yesterday with the artificial horizon app.. Vibration overwhelmed the sensors in the iphone - his comment of "this may save my ass" was quickly retracted! Basically a 60 degree turn was unregistered....

iTouch
 

The iPod Touch can run all the applications and connects through wifi, which can be picked up at quite a few airfields. I use:

AeroWeather - excellent as already mentioned
Pilot Wizz - good for weight & balance etc. only need a connection for weather.
GeeMeter - measured + and -ve G, just out of curiosity.

Without the phone connection, I also use WiFinder to find the free open networks.

All the above are free apps.

Are all these applications only available from apple? I am looking at getting the HTC Touch phone with microsoft 6.1 but would perhaps be interested in some of these apps. Or are there others out there for non ieverything users?

Shunter, how do you get 5 icons along the bottom line? :confused:

Please can some one explain to me what an iPhone is? While they are at it what is an iPod?

Thks Planemike...........

Planemike, im not sure whether you are being serious or not but having seen that you are 44 years older than me I can understand you not knowing about the i-everything revolution.

Originally it started out with the ipod. This is a portable music device in which you can copy music to in the form of mp3 (eg copy a cd onto the computer... or "record" ;))

Then they sold loads of these things, took over the market, kept bringing out new models and one day decided to put a phone in one. Its one of the new generation "smart phones" in which you can connect to the internet, send emails and get all of these applications as well as games and music etc.

It is extremly over priced and actually one of the worst "smart phones" around, however, they are very well known compared to the other brands, hence why just about everyone has one.

The iPod is what you get when the Obamas come and visit you... except that in this case it was a WePod!


ZA

Hi Pilot Pieces..........

I am absolutely serious. You are right my age may have something to do with it !!!

I have little interest in much of this technology which just seems to be technology for its own sake. My other problem is that much of it is anything but user friendly and it is just too much trouble to bother learning how to use it.

I love things that just have an ON - OFF switch..........simple!!!

Planemike

Like a Cessna 152 then?

There are far more applications available for Microsoft Mobile 6.1 and WinCE than there is for iphone ;)

dp

But having started on Windows 3.1 and transited to 3.11, 95, xp and then Vista, I'm soooo glad I moved on to a Mac operating system (2 days and you never look back) than I d never go back to MS.

The Iphone means a lot of added creature comforts in a very user friendly package.

a MEP and MAC loving poster

It requires a jailbroken phone. Jailbreaking (if you don't know what it is) essentially circumvents the Apple security which constrains you to running things that they approve of. There are many advantages, and absolutely zero disadvantages to doing it. It can be done with free software written by an outrageously talented bunch of embedded device engineers called the iPhone Dev Team. Once you're done with the over-the-top "you'll get what you're given, now stop moaning" protection, you're free to install non-approved 3rd-party applications. That one's called 5-icon-dock and does what it says on the tin. There are plenty of other useful ones which Apple decided not to allow on the app store; cut n paste, MMS, video recorder, backgrounder (to allow you to keep apps running - damn useful for many things). That said, the next version of iPhone software coming in a couple of months is pretty much a "kitchen sink" edition as far as features go; almost everything people have ever moaned about not being available is coming.... except backgrounding.

And your reference is......

The iTunes app store has fundamentally changed how people acquire applications. There were about 20,000 of them last time I checked, for almost every possible use.

I've had 2 Windoze Mobile phones in the past. I will NEVER EVER EVER have one again. Windows Mobile is !!!!e.

Nothing but my own experience.

How many aviation moving map applications can you name for the iphone? There are plenty for windows devices.

There is a huge range of software available for windows mobile devices. Perhaps partly because it has been around for a lot longer.

Is there anything for a Nokia E51? I think it runs Symbian... hasn't arrived yet though.

I've had a number of Pocket/PC (windoze mobile) PDAs and there is a vast range of software around for these. On a decent PDA, it runs OK. The drawback is always the battery life... never more than a few hours.

As regards phones (I mean phones which actually fit into what I'd call a pocket :) ) running Pocket/PC, it doesn't seem to work well. I have a Thuraya SG-2520 satellite phone which runs this and it is absolute crap. Very very slow just to move through the menus. What is the CPU doing?? Working out all the prime numbers from 3 to the phone's IMEI? Got to be careful though, as Thuraya monitor forums for unfavourable comments and they email you - no kidding!

Oh do me a favour. The only vaguely useful one for Windoze is Memory Map whose only redeeming feature is its proprietory map format for which CAA VFR charts are available. Whilst it's novel to see your paper chart on a PDA, almost every alternative is better (even those piddly little Garmins I have such disdain for).

For what it's worth, Memory Map will work on an iPhone if you're determined enough. It requires substantial knowledge of Arm architecture, the compiling of wine and qemu source, some dependency tinkering and relevant mapping of the GPS serial device. At the end of the day it's a Unix box and it'll do anything you want given the right knowledge, sufficient motivation and a large pinch of salt to accompany various EULAs.

...do not confuse with the Cessna i52

I answered a simple question
There are plenty. And whatever your opinion of moving map aviation system there are certainly lots available for windows mobile systems and none for the iphone.

The question asker will have no problem finding software for windows.

Yes, thank you Dublinpilot. I originally looked into getting the iphone but after pages and pages of reviews I started looking into other phones and found some right gems.

I just ordered an HTC Touch HD, perhaps the most similar phone to the current iphone, but with a list of advantages over the iphone (camera, screen res etc etc) and for nearly a third of the price!

A lot of the success of the iphone has come from the huge advertising campaign. It got me to, I was ready to buy one until I browsed through some reviews and started finding other phones that were just better.

I dont hate the iphone...but telling me that it has a lightsaber application so you can wave your phone around in the pub and zap people, isnt a selling point for me.

Apart from...
 

Apart from the fact that Apple don't really want you to do it, and if they lock jailbroken phones in the future you've bricked your phone. It would seem like a likely thing Apple would want to do.

uuuuuhhhhhhh

Mac bashing now, eh?

An unlocked iphone will remain unlocked for as long as you do not upgrade to the next version of the OS

People with an unlocked phone know they will have to wait a little longer before they can upgrade to the next OS version, and only do so if the new gadgets have value to them.

Each to their own. A little respect for owners of both MS and Mac OS, and no untrue rumors please.....

No bashing Macs
 

I've got a Mac Book Air myself, as well as an iPhone and have written a few apps. I like Macs, they've done a good job of making a unix box not look like unix. I mostly run linux at home but have a couple of WinXP\Vista Vm's about the place too. I pretty much run everything that's available out there.

I just thought the "no downside" to jailbreaking your phone was bit untrue. There again, anybody who wants and knows how, to jailbreak their phone probably knows what they are getting into.

I saw a few 'artificial horizon' apps in the app store. I'm sure some people think they will actually work. However, the iPhone doesn't have the sensors in it to implement an AI. It could do a G meter, it could do a balance ball and it could do a moving map GPS. But there's no way at all it could ever replicate an AI. Sure, you could make something that looks like an AI and appears to work on the ground but it would be of no use whatsoever in the air (and not because of the vibration).

M.

LogTen Student Edition

Foreflight Checklist - awesome!

I got a new phone, has an extremely useful feature that all phones should have.... you can make and receive calls from it..... NUFF SAID.

Like this very nice free one:
GeeMeter

Edit to add that I've just noticed that the picture was captured with the iPhone flat - the G reading is zero. In the vertical mode, it reads +1.

Good thread on the iphone apps running here:
http://www.pprune.org/military-aircr...lications.html

Where would one start (assuming they have a mac) to learn how to write apps for the iPhone?http://static.pprune.org/images/smilies/confused.gif

InDarknessConcealed, here.

You're confusing unlocking with jailbreaking. iPhones have 2 processors and 2 operating systems. 1 runs the front end stuff, the other runs the cellular comms. The 2 talk to each other.

Jailbreaking is the circumvention of the security which prevents unauthorised access to the front-end root filesystem. This is the system which runs all the visible applications, your music, etc... The exploit for the iPhone 3G jailbreak exists in HARDWARE. This means that Apple can NEVER block the jailbreak unless they modify the hardware of the phone. This may (or may not) happen when the new iPhone models are released in the summer. iPhone 3Gs will ALWAYS be jailbreakable. The front-end OS is Mac OS X compiled to run on an Arm processor.

The OS running the cellular comms is NucleusOS, a real-time system which runs on a separate processor to the front-end OS. The 2 operating systems talk to each other in order to make calls, send SMS etc. In order to unlock an iPhone using software alone, you need an exploitable buffer-overflow vulnerability in the Nucleus firmware, which can be executed interactively via an application running at the front-end. The guys who wrote the current 3G software unlock (aka yellowsn0w) managed to exploit vulnerabilities in several versions of Nucleus firmware, but only released software for v2.28 (released Nov 2008). The nature of the exploit is highly complex; instead of some schoolboy hexedit, they actually change the logic of the OS as it passes through RAM. Nucleus asks the sim card if it's from a valid network provider, and yellowsn0w forces the answer to be yes.

There is no way Jailbreaking or soft-unlocking an iPhone 3G can brick your phone. Loading up iTunes and selecting "Restore" will return your phone to factory settings, with all evidence of previous adventures completely erased.

The only defence Apple have against such exploits is the fact that the Nucleus firmware cannot(*) be downgraded. Every new release is digitally signed, and the phone will refuse to accept a new baseband firmware revision if it's been tampered with or has a lower version number. Of course, with a suitable exploit you can downgrade and circumvent the certificate check, but if you've got an exploit you wouldn't bother because you've already unlocked your phone. There are also (rare) iPhone 3Gs which have an exploitable bootloader (which isn't updated when new firmware is applied) which can be manipulated to downgrade baseband firmware.

I trust this post has been educational, but I'm getting rather bored of writing it now. The point still stands: there are many advantages and no disadvantages to jailbreaking your iPhone.

Well said Shunter!

I am a user and not a mobile hacker, but I've used an unlocked Iphone from the USA from almost day one (2G) on the Dutch Vodafone network.

I use the email with multiple email boxes for receiving and sending internationally, I just love the SMS (communications to and fro per contact), phone and many ipod as well as many downloadable apps.

In all this time I've never had a single problem, other than having to perhaps restart it once per month or two when I get the feeling it s slowing down a bit.

Shunter, with your good knowledge of iPhone, you might know the answer to this one: as far as I know, Apple intentionally tried to disable the possibility to make SIP calls over GPRS/EDGE. What exactly is blocked, and could one expect it to be circumvented in the near future? To me, this is the most important reason not to buy an iPhone, unless someone can prove me wrong.

BTW, speaking of moving map applications for Windows Mobile, there is PocketFMS, which might in fact give Jeppesen a run for its money.

Good post Shunter :ok:

I still cannot believe people are having to use buffer overflow (probably stack overflow) exploits to SP-unlock an Iphone. Having to go to such a length is disgusting. I would not touch an SP-locked phone with a 20ft bargepole. As a phone, the Iphone does little or nothing that other fancy phones cannot do. As a fashion accessory, well that's different...