WARNING iOS 8.3 & External GPS

[JPalese]

Here is the text of the e-mail I received from Bad Elf:

We are investigating reports that iOS 8.3 (released by Apple earlier this week) is not feeding GPS data from most external GPS receivers into 3rd party apps, such as ForeFlight, WingX, JeppFD, Navionics, and others. We have reproduced this issue in our lab and confirmed that this issue is not unique to Bad Elf GPS receivers, but affects other GPS receivers from Garmin and Dual Electronics as well.

Our newer GPS accessories, including the Bad Elf GPS Pro+ (BE-GPS-2300) and Bad Elf GNSS Surveyor (BE-GPS-3300) do not seem to be negatively impacted.

We are working with Apple to resolve this issue and will provide status updates as we get more information. In the meantime, we recommend you wait to upgrade your Apple devices to iOS 8.3.

[RV6_flyer]

Forefight also put out a notice about iOS 8.3.

Dear ForeFlight Customer,
We have learned of an issue with Apple iOS 8.3 that affects some early model Bluetooth GPS accessories, such as the Dual GPS 150 and Bad Elf Pro. When used with iOS 8.3, position information from these accessories may not be delivered to iOS applications including ForeFlight Mobile.
Stratus and Bad Elf Pro+ devices are not affected. Our friends at Bad Elf have escalated the issue to Apple for resolution.
As a workaround, customers with Wi-Fi + Cellular iPads who have upgraded to iOS 8.3 can disconnect their Bluetooth accessories and rely on the iPad?s internal GPS or Stratus. Customers with Wi-Fi only iPads who have upgraded to iOS 8.3 will need to wait for a resolution, upgrade to a newer GPS accessory, or connect to a Stratus.
We will keep you updated. If you rely on one of these early model Bluetooth GPS accessories, we do not recommend that you upgrade your Apple devices to iOS 8.3.
?Team ForeFlight


I have not updated to iOS 8.3 yet. I have a Cellular iPad Mini with Retina and also have Stratus 2. Both are reported to still work with the update.

[Bruce]

I did update to 8.3

Not good.

Waiting on the fix.

Did a local flight. Back to old school.

[rleffler]

On a positive note, the WiFried issues on both my iPad and iPhone seems to have been fixed with 8.3. Granted it's only been a couple of days, so testing isn't conclusive.

[BobTurner]

Hilton's (WingX) web site also has a caution posted to not upgrade to 8.3.

[jgoehl]

Does this affect the Garmin Pilot and the GDl39 ?

[Krynn]

Originally Posted by jgoehl

Does this affect the Garmin Pilot and the GDl39 ?

It shouldn't... The GDL 39 registers with the system as a bluetooth serial device, not a GPS. As such, Garmin Pilot talks directly to it rather than going through the OS.

Of course, I'm an Android guy, so you might want to hear from an iOS user before making the jump...
But after looking on Garmin forums, I'm seeing that you might have to un-pair and re-pair it after doing the iOS 8.3 upgrade, but it should work just fine.

[RViter]

Originally Posted by Krynn

... But after looking on Garmin forums, I'm seeing that you might have to un-pair and re-pair it after doing the iOS 8.3 upgrade, but it should work just fine.

Good advice to un-pair and pair again. This is a good procedure to be able to do, went through this on both my iPhone and iPad (after the iOS 8.3 update). The ForeFlight position seems to be intermittent, rather than persistent.

Bad Elf is BE-GPS-2200 HW v2.1.0 FW v2.0.74 (latest versions, no updates available) ... only had 6 months, but what constitutes "older version" if it's been sitting on a vendor shelf for months?

Not flying yet, Dynon SkyView 10" (older) and thinking that the Dynon WiFi USB dongle to feed the iPad mini will be well worth the price. 2nd Option for GPS to the ForeFlight. Redundancy option.

Thanks for the alert!!

[BCP Boys]

Can someone from the Garmin team ( I know this is not a Garmin only issue) please let us know if the developers are working with Apple to have a fix on the next IOS release?

[Darin Watson]

Much has been made of the BT issues but I am also hamstrung with Foreflight and the 30 pin direct connect, which apparently both FW and BE are already aware of...if only Apple would let you downgrade one update when this happens.