Useful Apps/widgets for Android phones?
 

I've just moved from an elderly N95 to a wizzy Android phone - which Apps/Widgets are the "must haves"?

HFD

Aviation Weather
 

I'm using Aviation Weather to lookup METARs and TAFs and find it quite useful.

Just bought an HTC Wildfire from T-Mobile and using Google Calendar, Tasks and Gmail that automatically syncs with my various PC's. Also use FriendStream to get Aviationsafety,Flyontrack, Airspacesafety and other news streams as they happen.

Regarding apps try FlightWatchLite for simple METARS, AviatorJoe WxFeed or TAFsMETARs21 for TAFS and METARS, FlightToolsE6B or the All-in-1-Calc for conversions, BBDensityAltitude Pro (still in development), Time Calc for hrs, min, sec conversions, iMap Waether gives local wind, temperature, humidity, dew point, sunrise and sunset, Sundroid just for sunset/sunrise times, Siderial Clock for UTC etc and of course you can bookmark Wind Map - Britain Observations to get the complete UK wide wind map.

While we are on the topic of Android. Does anyone know of an app that receives Australian weather other than the major airports? Bankstown for example.

I also use google my tracks to record my flights and upload them to google maps, this proves very useful in my navigation training

I use the i phone, but i think the apps are available on most platforms now.
AeroWeather is what it says, and is quite handy, as you can monitor just about any field in the world. PilotWiz is good for all these calculations you have to do to go flying. V-Cockpit lite is a bit of fun!
Many apps are available free in a 'lite' form, but if you want the full boona you will have to pay.

Try the memory map app.
I think you can download it for free from memory map's website. I have their app on an Iphone and it was free.

Check it works with a free map and tells you where you are etc, then download the CAA 1:500000 map. You can input routes and waypoints, it gives you a velocity vector (a line showing where you will be in 5 minutes' time), all with a moving CAA chart.

It costs £20 basically gives you an Airbox Aware but without the airspace warnings.

I've flown with it because my group plane has a very archaic monochrome GPS that we can't work properly. The Iphone tells us exactly where we are on the chart and I use it to simply find myself on a chart more quickly without the need to fiddle with the aircraft's overly complex GPS interface.

FF.

I bought the £20 Memory Map app for my girlfriend's Iphone 4, largely because I have a vast # of MM QCT maps; 1:50k for all of UK, etc, and there is a lot of QCTs on P2P, torrent, etc. including the current 3 CAA charts joined into one.

As far as I can tell the free MM app doesn't accept any QCT maps.

The £20 app appears to download street maps around your current GPS position but MM do not reply to any emails so I have not found out the map coverage limits. I don't know what the entitlement there is... But it runs all the old QCT maps OK, including O/Survey ones, and they get uploaded to the Iphone via a WIFI "ftp server" feature which you get on the £20 app.

It is a horrid clunky app but there is no other way to run QCTs. Somebody else developed a QCT viewer but IIRC MM blocked Apple from accepting it into their shop.

It runs the MM CAA charts OK.

Whether the Iphone does what you need is an "individual decision" ;) I have had to be very careful to not tear out my remaining hair because while the thing is wonderful up to a point (the point having been carefully defined by the Apple Politburo in a special plenary session to determine "privileges for the great unwashed") it has a lot of very irritating limitations. The GPS is excellent on the ground but I wonder how long it takes to get a fix if turned on in the air; also there is no way to have the GPS enabled and GSM disabled so there is always the risk of avionics interference.

I guess we'll just have to wait for usage and development to evolve this kind of thing until its all things to all men.

I think the memory map app could only be better on an Android rather than an Iphone since the Android is easier for devlopers to work with since the restrictions are fewer (it supports Flash unlike the Iphone for example)

The memory map app works well for me on an Iphone and I'm sure other vendors will produce competitors eventually. The competition will drive up the functionality and the usability, though perhaps not the price since Memory Map have set the bar so low (£20).

Memory Map are encrypting all (all?) their new maps. The QC3 format is encrypted and is locked to the installed app. The app itself is tied to the specific hardware. So this is a dead end for developers.

The QCT format was reverse engineered a few years back, has been documented, and now there are a few converters around. Whether anybody wants to develop a viewer for it, I don't know, given the limited map potential, with more or less the only maps being bootleg QCT ones, or scans of printed ones which somebody bothered to convert to QCT.

The much bigger GPS moving map app is Oxiexplorer which runs generic formats but (from postings on its user group) its author is very unlikely to drop everything and produce an Iphone version. And nobody is publishing copyright charts in generic formats because practically all maps in Europe are copyright and there is no money in publishing them in a generic format.

The Iphone 4 has a great screen; the best there is on a smartphone. Apps should make use of this.

The bottom line is that a GPS moving map app is a piece of cake to write, incl. one which would wipe the floor with MM. The trick is in the map data. You have only got to look at Jeppesen, whose Jeppview and Flitestar apps are really crap but all pros have to use them because of the data.

Some possible good news for Iphone users:

Development for other Operating Systems

Just looked on the Memory Map webiste and they are working on an Android version, which is good as I have retained my old HTC Touch Diamond to use in the cockpit. It works really well but the screen on my HTC Desire is so much bigger so looking forward to switching to that

Aviation Stuff:
Intellipilot logbook
Aviation weather with decode
Snowtam decoder
Timetable by W.A.T.T.
Planefinder
Flightradar 24 pro

General stuff:
App list backup
AppstoSD
Call confirm
Map compass
Compass
xe currency
Find my car lite
Handcent sms
Maps(-) cache maps for travel
Taskos

Oh & Talking Tom Cat

MM is £9.99 at the moment.

Not sure if the £9.99 version has the wifi map upload feature. Worth checking. This feature enables you to (on the Iphone 4 anyway) upload all your QCT maps which you got from bit-torrent ;)

The basic MM version does nothing useful; you can just download separately purchased downloadable street etc map coverage, from MM, online.

I tried to check this with MM but they have never replied to a single email I sent them.

If I knew what you were talking about I'd probably agree with you!:}

The QCT format is how, historically, MM maps were distributed.

There is a vast amount of QCT maps floating around. MM were/are selling the 1:25k, 1:50k Ordnance Survey maps, road maps, some city street maps, some (rather poor) European road maps, and the 1:250k, 1:500k CAA maps and also airport diagrams.

About a year ago, MM moved to a QC3 format which is locked to the hardware and cannot be copied (till somebody develops a crack) but it doesn't matter much for now because one can go hiking etc with maps which are several years old.

The UK CAA maps moved to QC3 but some enterprising people have scanned all 3 maps, joined them into one, and converted the result to QCT :) :) :) :ok:

MM cannot stop people scanning paper maps and generating a QCT version. However, I think Oziexplorer is a better platform for a moving map GPS. I suspect MM will eventually collapse, once Ordnance Survey will terminate their monopoly.

AIUI the change in MM file format was to comply with OS copyright conditions - any other mapping software would have similar restrictions.

I looked into the self scan option a while back but its just too much effort - even for this freetard.

Its so much easier to download the free MM software & pay £20 for a CAA chart. The picture quality is always good at any zoom level; if you upgrade your computer or change your phone you can always migrate the map licence to your new hardware.

The only difference between the free & paid iPhone apps is that only the paid app allows you to use maps you already own on your desktop computer on the iPhone. You can buy additional iPhone only maps for the free app at a reduced price. I don't believe either version allows you to import self scanned maps.

I imagine the upcoming Android app will be similar.

Hmmm, why did they sell the maps as QCT for all those years beforehand?

IMHO, clearly, they changed to QC3 to cut down on bootlegging.

There isn't a lot of "other" software - O/S seems to have done an exclusive deal with MM on most of these maps.

I agree £20 is not an issue - unless you need to view the map on several devices (say at home, laptop, work, etc) which is no longer possible, and anyway this is on top of the £14 for the printed map - every year.
Unless you convert it to QCT. I don't recall the process but have seen it done and it is quite involved. IIRC, one cannot do it with the MM app historically sold with the CAA MM charts. One has to use the "normal" MM app. Then there is a lengthy process to generate a georeferenced QCT.

It is far easier to do for Oziexplorer and I have calibrated many maps - right down to city / street maps. Ozi doesn't yet exist for the Iphone but they say they are working on it. It's obviously a big market, because while the Iphone is a slightly naff phone, it is a really slick moving map GPS which wipes the floor with any "PDA" :)