Using the iPad as an EFB
 

What do you think about the new apple iPad? It's kneeboard size and can store a lot of information. It also has audio outputs for music.

There's been a lot of discussion on this topic over at the Red Board. My .02 is that it will probbaly work fine, assuming the screen is at least somewhat sunlight readable. I love the form factor, but my problem with it is what you get for the price--a scaled up iPOD Touch. If I'm going to pay that kind of money, I really want more "laptop-like" functionality. If they ever give it an OS capable of multitasking and add a full-up USB port (I'll take a B port, but would prefer an A) I'd buy one ASAP. Unfortunlately, the lack of multitasking is the showstopper for me, although for an EFB you probably wouldn't need that as a feature.

Better hardware for the money
 

There is better hardware for the money on the market, or soon to be on the market.

I don't know if there is any iPhone (iTouch) software for aviation, if there is not, the iPad is not going to be very useful unless you are willing to do some serious hacking in order to put a different operating System on it. Other hardware will probably be more useful and more adaptable

So unless you already have a iPhone app that you just need a bigger screen for I would avoid buying an iPad. (plus it has no GPS built in :( )

The missing GPS seems to be the most unfortunate omission. The tech specs page on the apple site isn't very clear, or wasn't last time I checked. Only the 3G version indicated it would come with "assisted GPS". My guess is it will not really be GPS, but cell tower triangulation, which isn't useful for us.

On a tangent, I wish Apple would use a term other than GPS if it is in fact cell tower triangulation. The term is so misleading. There is nothing "global" about cell tower triangulation.


There are a lot of good aviation apps for the iphone however, and they should all work on the ipad. Maybe the device can be used with a bluetooth gps?

It appears the ipad won't be able to tether to my cell phone for internet access though, so I certainly won't be buying one. The Dell Mini 5 w/Android will be out soon though, and I'll probably buy one.

The iPad does have a true GPS but I don't know how well it works in an aviation environment. Also there are aviation apps for the iPhone and iPod Touch (Foreflight is a pretty good example), so out of the gate the iPad will have some EFB capability.

Ah, you are right Todd. I just went and did some more searching. The assisted gps has a true gps unit and uses cell towers to speed up getting the gps fix. Unless someone has more info though, the apple site still shows gps only for the 3g model, making the entry price for a gps capable ipad $629.

my iPhone runs Skycharts just fine in the air...on the iPad I imagine it would be awesome.

I'll be very interested to see whether it is really sunlight-readable.

greg

Same here! I use Skycharts when I go cross country and haven't had a problem with GPS coverage. Now, you put that on a big screen and it would be awesome! I don't have a problem with direct sunlight visibility for my IPhone. I hope the IPad display is as good!

I can see Skycharts on my iPhone just fine in the sunlight. It is an amazing bargain at $10, which gets you all VFR charts, IFR charts, A/FD, approach plates, etc. and you are able to select what you want cached on your phone.