From a cost issue, there are a number of free charting apps on the iPad (but not the good ones, which do cost). Also, iPads are no more expensive than an equivalent PC or laptop once you've included the necessary accessories to use.Sumner wrote:Interesting, what makes it different than say one of the navigation programs that are either free or that you pay for on a pc where you just click, click, click and have a route and information about the route right there and can easily transfer to another device such as a chart plotter in a few seconds or use on the pc?
But from a user interface perspective, here's why:
Physical interface:
I happen to know you've got a nice custom 12VDC low power PC on your boat that is a strong contender for being as efficient as an iPad, but you still must have a surface to run your mouse on an a separate monitor. I can carry the iPad with me from my house to the cockpit to the cabin to the berth and do not need to transfer data anywhere because I can transfer the device. I can plan my trip at home on a device that I can also use as a chartplotter (although I do use and recommend dedicated charplotters for other reasons).
Logical Interface:
When I click on a chart with a mouse and then drag to another area, did I intend to pan the view, or was I drawing a course between point (a) and point (b)? It's nebulous and it varies widely by application. On an iPad, it always means panning, always, and in every application. Does scrolling the mouse wheel mean I'm zooming, or is it panning in the Y axis, or what? On an ipad, zooming is always pinching/stretching your fingers. How to I rotate the map on a PC? Find the little compass rose and rotate that? Click a clockwise or counter clockwise arrow? On an iPad, it's two fingers and rotate.
Human Interface:
The bottom line for me is that despite having adopted the mouse wholeheartedly in 1984 with the 128K original Macs, and having purchased my first "touch" tablet in 1999 (a toshiba convertible laptop--quite the device in its time) and then writing off the concept of touch interfaces as pointless, the iPad just works so well with its multitouch U/I that you don't have to learn what anything means. There's no instructions, no help, just look at the device and work it. Far less learning.
I've found as I age that I'm not really resistant to change, I'm resistant to learning pointless things. When something actually works more intuitively, it's easy to adopt, and then I get just as crotchety about having to go back to more primitive interfaces.
I've got a touch-screen Sony PC that is largely ignored in the office. I'm going to install Windows 8 on it now that the release version is available and I've played with the release candidate in a VM. I'll make an attempt with it, but I honestly think that I'm done with PCs. I've been a professional IT guy for 25 years, but it's high time my job has been eliminated by hardware that doesn't break and software that just works.
Having said all that, I've realized that I might just really like the user interface of paper charts best of all
P.S. I'm not by any means a "windows hater" or an Apple apologist. I've written 16 books about Windows and make the vast majority of my income supporting Windows: http://www.amazon.com/Matthew-Strebe/e/ ... sr=1-2-ent
