iPhone / iPad App with ActiveCaptain

P

Pat Anderson

New member
Just bought this for my iPhone. From ActiveCaptain:

This has been an incredible year for ActiveCaptain. As we find
ourselves back on land for the Summer, word came of the 14th shipping navigation product available right now that supports ActiveCaptain. If that wasn't enough to show that the data you've created is fantastic, there are another 6 products in development and multiple marine electronics manufacturers who are creating prototypes and working toward supporting all of this exceptional data. What a year this has been.

The 14th product is a really nice one. It's an app for the iPhone
and iPad and is called eSeaChart. It's available in the Apple App
Store now and costs only $7.99. It includes all NOAA raster charts and supports all ActiveCaptain data offline with full synchronization. If you like raster charts and are loving your iPhone/iPad, this is a nice, inexpensive product to grab.
 
I have been using the AC website for over a year but we just started using the android app on the smartphone as well. It really is a very useful reference and addtion to our set of cruising guides.
 
Not impressed at all with the Active Captain Ipad app, even for only $7.99, where as thought the Navionics US & Canada for $39.99 a fantastic App in use with the IPad that has a built in GPS.

It could be just me & the learning curve with Active Captain, but found the Navionics app extremely intuitive which always puts a :smile on my face.

Jay
 
Pat Anderson":3j1pm6ze said:
Just bought this for my iPhone. From ActiveCaptain:
Click to expand...

Certainly a better deal than the previously-announced Active Captain iPhone product, from Navimatics. That one costs $24.99 for just the West Coast, as opposed to $7.99 for eSeaChart and all NOAA charts. It has received mixed reviews on the app store, but I already have the Navionics app, which is a great charting app, and eSeaChart would be worth the price just for the Active Captain access.

Now that you have had it for a while, any further kudos or brickbats to report?

Warren
 
Pat Anderson":371hzhsg said:


The 14th product is a really nice one. It's an app for the iPhone
and iPad and is called eSeaChart. It's available in the Apple App
Store now and costs only $7.99. It includes all NOAA raster charts and supports all ActiveCaptain data offline with full synchronization. If you like raster charts and are loving your iPhone/iPad, this is a nice, inexpensive product to grab.
Click to expand...


Pat

To sync with Active Captain & use The "interactive cruise guide" it says on the Active Captain home page Navimatics Charts & Tides for $24.99 must be purchased to make it work because on the IPhone & ipad "Adobe flash reader" is not supported. Think the eSeaChart for $8 on a iPad worth it but not so sure with the additional $25.

May well be there,s a way around if so would love to be enlightened.

Jay
 
Hunkydory":256sxm47 said:
To sync with Active Captain & use The "interactive cruise guide" it says on the Active Captain home page Navimatics Charts & Tides for $24.99 must be purchased to make it work because on the IPhone & ipad "Adobe flash reader" is not supported. Think the eSeaChart for $8 on a iPad worth it but not so sure with the additional $25.

May well be there,s a way around if so would love to be enlightened.
Click to expand...
Jay, where did you find the above? I went back to the ActiveCaptain website and to the eSeaChart website and could not find it. The reviews on the Apple iPhone app store made no mention of such a limitation but did mention problems in getting charts to quilt seamlessly. Nothing about needing another app for ActiveCaptain support.

Thanks.
Warren
 
Jay,
I downloaded the eSeaChart App onto my i pad. Then downloaded all of the charts for Florida. Finally I synched it with my Active Captain account. This all took about half an hour (mostly passive--and perhaps slow because I have several computers all running off the WiFi router).

The eSeaChart is a Raster Scan, the Navimatics is a vector scan chart program (and as you point out more expensive for each area), where the eSeaChart uses the public domain NOAA Raster Charts.

There is no reason to down load the Navimatics program to use the eSeaChart. The Active Captain data download seemed a little slower in the eSeaChart, and it was not as "smooth" in quilting etc, as the Navimatics, but all of the information was there. I didn't see a way to change or post to Active Captain on eSeaChart.

I suspose at some point space on the i pad will be a problem. I have a 32 gig 3G unit--and the memory is half full. I have all of the Navionics Charts for North America and Caribbean, as well as multiple other nautical programs, Weather programs, a few hundred "songs" and some books. (83 apps currently) Maybe next time (several years down the line), I'll get a 64 Gig i pad, but plenty of storage currently.

No question that the Navionics maps are the best--but no Active captain. I use the i pad for planing (when I can go...got to keep that dream alive).
 
Warren and Bob

When using my IPad it will not sync the eSeaChart with Active Captain and then when I use their link under more info in settings to Active Captain and go to "The Interactive Cruising Guidebook" the first item under that page states the "Adobe Flask Player Is Required" and the IPhone and IPad doesn't have it and recommends using " Navimatics Charts and Tides" instead. If I use a computer instead of the IPad to access this page in Active Captain this information doesn't show, so Warren, I do not know how to provide a link for you to see it unless you have a IPad.

Bob, could it be the reason your IPad does sync is you already have Navionics down loaded on it.

Jay
 
Hi Jay,
I doubt that having Navionics already loaded is related. I do have Navimatics charts and tide for the Gulf Coast loaded also. However it is not open.

First I went to the App store on the i pad, and installed eSeaCharts. Then I clicked on "Charts" in the upper left bar, and it asked if I wanted "current location" or "what state". I clicked on Florida, and downloaded 240 mb of raster charts. Then I opened a chart near my current location. Nothing happened, so I started punching other buttons. The upper right has a "wheel" in the bar, and when touching that it says "settings" first are velocity factor, then "disable Screen lock", next in the list is Active Captain. I clicked "on" show markers, and then entered my Active Captain Email address and account password. At that point it allowed me to sync with Active captain. That process was about 15 minutes. Next on the menu is "more information"--active captain. This just takes you to the active captain web site. Finally the last settings are about eSeaChart.

Do you have an Active Captain account? If so did you enter the email address and password?

There is another logo at the upper right side of the screen, perhaps a compass rose? That refreshes the chart at a large scale.

Once you have synced the chart, the active captan markers stay in place and touching them bring up the information.

This program is written for i pad, and no flash player is necessary or mentioned.

Hope this helps. The charts and tides is faster, and quilts better. I suspect that other versions of eSeaCharts will probably be improved.
 
Bob, appreciate the help, but still can't sync eSeaChart with Active Captain. Had already done same as you (except Alaska instead of Florida) up to in the settings section of entering my email address and password from Active Captain. When I tried to enter them a blank settings page appears that I can do nothing on, so I moved on down the settings page to "more information" and the web link to Active Captain where I found the following quote.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
ADOBE'S FREE FLASH READER IS REQUIRED

Attention iPhone and iPad users!
Adobe Flash is not supported on the Apple iPhone and iPad. Instead, Navimatics Charts & Tides iPhone/iPad app is an excellent tool for those devices. It keeps all of the ActiveCaptain data offline on the device so no internet connection is needed to view any of our data. When you have an internet connection, it allows you to synchronize with the web site to make sure you have the very latest marker and review information. It's a fantastic app - purchasing a single license allows you to run it at the same time on your iPhone and iPad.


Parts of the ActiveCaptain web site require installation of the latest version of Adobe's free Flash Reader. Flash is probably installed on your computer already but we use the very latest features and need the latest version.

Download the latest Flash Player from Adobe.


Installation notes:
After installation you will probably have to quit the browser you are using and restart it to guarantee that the new Flash Reader is loaded. On some installations, you might have to reboot your computer.

If the Flash Reader still doesn't install properly, you might have to uninstall your current version before upgrading to the latest Player.

If you have problems getting the Flash Reader installed, please contact us or email us at support@activecaptain.com.



Flash is a registered trademark of Adobe Systems Incorporated.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

As I can only access this quote through eSeaCharts and so far I can't sync eSeaChart with Active Captain still thinking Navimatics could be necessary to do so.

Jay
 
Jay, you should talk to Jeffrey Siegel at Active Captain because, don't forget, he is advertising Active Captain compatibility with eSeaChart on the iPhone/iPad and everyone knows that Steve Jobs hates Flash so any iPhone or iPad app will by definition be Flash-free. jeff@activecaptain.com is his address.

Warren
 
Jay,
Jeff (Active Captain) is a member of C brats. At one time he was considering a Tom Cat as I recollect, but decided to stick with his DeFever Trawler. He is a person who is easy to communicate with.

I don't know how long you waited, but it took considerable time to sync and download AC on eSeaChart the first time. I almost gave up. After using it a few times it is faster--I suspect the "optimizing" charts and downloading the data takes the time. Last night I worked along the coast to Galviston on the i pad, and all of the Active Captain links were on the charts as I down loaded, without an additional sync.

As I recollect Jeff and commented in the past about the difficulty of using apple products and that why it was a long time coming. It is strange, since I don't get the same message that you do. You may well be correct that the Tides and Charts give a leg up. But the text and format is somewhat different between the two programs....Hard to understand how one app could build on another without license.

Please let us know what Jeff says. If you don't want to contact Jeff, I love an excuse to exchange e mails with him. (We met back when I was doing lectures at Trawler Fest)
 
Bob,

Took yours and Warrens advise and sent a email to Jeff. Not only explained my syncing problem to him, but suggested he read and post to this thread any help He might be able to offer.

If he doesn't post here, but does answer me will gladly inform all here of what he suggest and sure don't mind you communicating with him about this either way.

No matter how this works out with eSeaCharts and Active Captain am loving my IPad. Most remarkable little gizmo I've ever aquired.

Again thanks for your help thus far.

Jay
 
Yikes! There has certainly been some confusing postings in this thread. I'm really happy to help sort things out.

First, no one bought any of these iPhone, iPad, iTouch, or Android products from "ActiveCaptain". We do not sell any products for those platforms. ActiveCaptain has data and API's that it licenses to other developers to allow them to include the data and synchronize it to get the most current updates inside their navigation products. There are 14 products shipping today with support, another 6 in development, and a couple of major marine electronics manufacturers working on ways to put the data into their chartplotters.

There is no license fee for any of these companies to add ActiveCaptain to their product. There are also no user fees. It is completely free for all of these products to add support for our data.

Obviously I have experience with each product and I'm happy to help users figure out the best ways to use our data with these products. I've written a private email to hunkydory to help him with his specific issues.

Navionics is a major nautical chart manufacturer. They currently have an outstanding app for iOS and Android but it does not have ActiveCaptain support at all. I've been talking to them for a couple of years through all levels of their developer and executive management including the President of the company. For reasons that are not obvious to me, they have chosen to not license ActiveCaptain at this time. If you're interested in having the capability inside their products, you, the users need to write to them. We've done all we can do.

There is no incompatibility between eSeaChart, Navimatics, Navionics, or any other app that I've ever seen. They all can reside on the same device. My own iPhone has all of those product coexisting with zero problems.

I'm not really sure I understand the Flash issues that have been raised. Flash is used on the ActiveCaptain website to implement the Interactive Cruising Guidebook section. It has nothing to do with any of the apps for iOS or Android. Some people would like to use our website on their iPad. Since Mr. Jobs has not allowed Flash to be used inside Safari on the iPad, the website section will not work. The new Blackberry Playbook and various Android pads do have Flash support. All parts of the website work on them. The reality is that for iOS and Android phones, the only real way to use ActiveCaptain is by getting one of the apps that support it. They keep the data offline which is much nicer for boating than the website live online display too.

Finally, I am working on a set of applications for Windows, Macintosh, Linux, iOS, Android, Blackberry Playbook, and even the new SmartTV platform. These applications are an "underway" version of our website. They aren't chartplotters but they do display your location on a screen along with some new functionality that doesn't exist anywhere. I look at these apps as companions to other navigation products and honestly don't even have a name for the product yet. The design and development of these applications have been going on for a few years and should appear this year.

Much of the direction of where ActiveCaptain is going is based on the new routes capabilities and the shared routes features that are just about to be released. I was asked to provide more information on where this is all going and you can see that posting here:
http://www.seafaring.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=22147&start=0

That posting talks about shared routes and the new capabilities they'll bring in the new applications that are coming later in the year.

In the last year we've grown from about 20,000 users to now 110,000. There were 2 navigation products that supported us last year. There are now 14 shipping products. I'm really sorry that I haven't spent more time on C-Brats. I used to lurk and contribute lightly every day. It's just that I've been a little swamped and it's only getting worse (in a "it's getting really great" way). I hope you'll understand - write to me any time if questions come up or I can add anything.

And Bob, yes, there's still a TomCat or CD in our personal future. We've been spending 9 continuous months on our trawler now and the DeFever has been really comfortable for that. Those days will someday end - I want to put some serious road and water miles on a TC/CD eventually and see a lot of what else is out there.
 
I'll certainly 2nd the Yikes!!!

As yet still no help in answering the question of whether a Navimatics app is necessary or not to sync the eSeaChart app with Active Captain in a IPad most specifically my own. Jeff didn't have the answer and suggested I contact eSeaChart with this problem and I'm waiting for them to respond or maybe he did in this quote from him above and requoted here.

"I'm not really sure I understand the Flash issues that have been raised. Flash is used on the ActiveCaptain website to implement the Interactive Cruising Guidebook section. It has nothing to do with any of the apps for iOS or Android. Some people would like to use our website on their iPad. Since Mr. Jobs has not allowed Flash to be used inside Safari on the iPad, the website section will not work. The new Blackberry Playbook and various Android pads do have Flash support. All parts of the website work on them. The reality is that for iOS and Android phones, the only real way to use ActiveCaptain is by getting one of the apps that support it. They keep the data offline which is much nicer for boating than the website live online display too"

Am I wrong or does this mean as I thought from the start that an app like Navimatics or Navimatics itself for an additional $24.99 is needed to make eSeaChart and Active Captain sync on a IPad. The above says basically the same thing as what I quoted yesterday from the Active Captain website on this thread. and it was this.

"ADOBE'S FREE FLASH READER IS REQUIRED

Attention iPhone and iPad users!
Adobe Flash is not supported on the Apple iPhone and iPad. Instead, Navimatics Charts & Tides iPhone/iPad app is an excellent tool for those devices. It keeps all of the ActiveCaptain data offline on the device so no internet connection is needed to view any of our data. When you have an internet connection, it allows you to synchronize with the web site to make sure you have the very latest marker and review information. It's a fantastic app - purchasing a single license allows you to run it at the same time on your iPhone and iPad.

Feeling like I'm going round in circles.

At this point I'm thinking eSeaChart for $7.99 may be the Cat's Meow on a regular computer, but not so hot unless you want to cough up an extra 25 bucks or already have Navamatics or the like on the IPad or IPhone and yes I'm still hoping someone can convince me otherwise.

Jay
 
Hunkydory":2wus43e9 said:
Feeling like I'm going round in circles.

At this point I'm thinking eSeaChart for $7.99 may be the Cat's Meow on a regular computer, but not so hot unless you want to cough up an extra 25 bucks or already have Navamatics or the like on the IPad or IPhone and yes I'm still hoping someone can convince me otherwise.
Click to expand...
I'm sorry that you didn't get the information from my posting or personal email. eSeaChart has nothing to do with Navimatics - they are competitive products. eSeaChart stands on its own and does full sync'ing with ActiveCaptain all on its own. I'm not sure what you're referring to about it being the cat's meow on a regular computer. eSeaChart is only available on iOS devices.

And once again, bringing Flash into the question is just wasting time and going down the wrong path.

The bottom line - if you want to view ActiveCaptain data on your iOS device, you can purchase Navimatics Charts & Tides or eSeaChart today. Both will provide the functionality. If you don't want to purchase either product, then you can still access the ActiveCaptain website live online with a laptop for free or use one of the other navigation products for Windows, Mac, or Linux.
 
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