iPhone in a glider?

Has anyone thought about applications for the iPhone 3G platform in a
glider? It has an excellent sunlight readable screen with touch
interface that causes no loss of image quality. It has an
accelerometer built in, a GPS that is probably better than spot,
wireless for speech commands, remote interfaces, etc. fast processor,
lots of ram for large maps and gesture recognition for panning,
zooming, etc. Web access (where available) for a quick weather update
before launch. Seems like an opportunity waiting to happen...

Come up with some good ideas, and maybe I will implement one!

Matt Herron
GlidePlan Inc.
http://www.glideplan.com

Matt Herron Jr. wrote:
Has anyone thought about applications for the iPhone 3G platform in a
glider? It has an excellent sunlight readable screen with touch
interface that causes no loss of image quality. It has an
accelerometer built in, a GPS that is probably better than spot,
wireless for speech commands, remote interfaces, etc. fast processor,
lots of ram for large maps and gesture recognition for panning,
zooming, etc. Web access (where available) for a quick weather update
before launch. Seems like an opportunity waiting to happen...

Come up with some good ideas, and maybe I will implement one!

It's something I've given some thought to. I don't have an iPhone and
don't want to pay for the expensive subscription, so I was hoping that the
second version of the iPod Touch would include GPS. Unfortunately it
didn't, so the iPhone is still the only one with that.

As for functionality, seems like it would be great to have a moving map,
glide amoeba, thermal finder, and any other goodies that could be stuffed
in there. I agree that it packs a great deal of power and would be a very
capable machine.

Unfortunately Apple has some heavy restrictions on what you can do with
the platform, including one that says "Applications may not be designed or
marketed for real time route guidance". I don't know if that would cover
this sort of software or not. From what I hear it's extremely difficult to
get a definitive answer about these things out of Apple without simply
building the app and trying to get it approved. It is possible to work
around these limitations and bypass Apple for distribution, but it tends
to be more work and limit your audience, making it kind of risky.

--
Mike Ash
Radio Free Earth
Broadcasting from our climate-controlled studios deep inside the Moon

On Sep 18, 8:59*am, Michael Ash wrote:
Matt Herron Jr. wrote:

Has anyone thought about applications for the iPhone 3G platform in a
glider? *It has an excellent sunlight readable screen with touch
interface that causes no loss of image quality. *It has an
accelerometer built in, a GPS that is probably better than spot,
wireless for speech commands, remote interfaces, etc. fast processor,
lots of ram for large maps and gesture recognition for panning,
zooming, etc. *Web access (where available) for a quick weather update
before launch. *Seems like an opportunity waiting to happen...

Come up with some good ideas, and maybe I will implement one!

It's something I've given some thought to. I don't have an iPhone and
don't want to pay for the expensive subscription, so I was hoping that the
second version of the iPod Touch would include GPS. Unfortunately it
didn't, so the iPhone is still the only one with that.

As for functionality, seems like it would be great to have a moving map,
glide amoeba, thermal finder, and any other goodies that could be stuffed
in there. I agree that it packs a great deal of power and would be a very
capable machine.

Unfortunately Apple has some heavy restrictions on what you can do with
the platform, including one that says "Applications may not be designed or
marketed for real time route guidance". I don't know if that would cover
this sort of software or not. From what I hear it's extremely difficult to
get a definitive answer about these things out of Apple without simply
building the app and trying to get it approved. It is possible to work
around these limitations and bypass Apple for distribution, but it tends
to be more work and limit your audience, making it kind of risky.

--
Mike Ash
Radio Free Earth
Broadcasting from our climate-controlled studios deep inside the Moon

I just took my new 3G for a flight. gpstracker application works very
well to track flights on google earth. Also gives Long/Lat speed as
well as altitude every 5 seconds. Check it out.

In article writes:
On Sep 18, 8:59 am, Michael Ash wrote:
Matt Herron Jr. wrote:
Has anyone thought about applications for the iPhone 3G platform in a
glider? It has an excellent sunlight readable screen with touch
interface that causes no loss of image quality. It has an
accelerometer built in, a GPS that is probably better than spot,
wireless for speech commands, remote interfaces, etc. fast processor,
lots of ram for large maps and gesture recognition for panning,
zooming, etc. Web access (where available) for a quick weather update
before launch. Seems like an opportunity waiting to happen...

Come up with some good ideas, and maybe I will implement one!

(trimmed)

Unfortunately Apple has some heavy restrictions on what you can do with
the platform, including one that says "Applications may not be designed or
marketed for real time route guidance". I don't know if that would cover
this sort of software or not. From what I hear it's extremely difficult to
get a definitive answer about these things out of Apple without simply
building the app and trying to get it approved. It is possible to work
around these limitations and bypass Apple for distribution, but it tends
to be more work and limit your audience, making it kind of risky.

Mike Ash
Radio Free Earth
Broadcasting from our climate-controlled studios deep inside the Moon

I just took my new 3G for a flight. gpstracker application works very
well to track flights on google earth. Also gives Long/Lat speed as
well as altitude every 5 seconds. Check it out.


It might be fun, but it is also quite illegal.


47 cfr 22.925 states:

22.925 Prohibition on airborne operation of cellular telephones.

Cellular telephones installed in or carried aboard airplanes,
balloons or any other type of aircraft must not be operated while
such aircraft are airborne (not touching the ground). When any
aircraft leaves the ground, all cellular telephones on board that
aircraft must be turned off. The following notice must be posted on
or near each cellular telephone installed in any aircraft:

The use of cellular telephones while this aircraft is airborne is
prohibited by FCC rules, and the violation of this rule could result
in suspension of service and/or a fine. The use of cellular
telephones while this aircraft is on the ground is subject to FAA
regulations.


The FAA prohibits the use in flight in 91.21, but that generally doesn't
apply to VFR flight in small aircraft. (It essentially forbids use in airliners
and IFR flight.)

The FCC prohibits use in any aircraft when airborne.

The iPhone is being "operated" when it is updating map data. It is even
being operated when it is turned on and talking to cell towers.

To be legal, turn it off, or put it in airplane mode, before takeoff ---
and leave it that way until back on the ground.

Better to save the battery to make a call if you land out.


Alan

On Sep 19, 3:59*am, Michael Ash wrote:
Matt Herron Jr. wrote:

Has anyone thought about applications for the iPhone 3G platform in a
glider? *It has an excellent sunlight readable screen with touch
interface that causes no loss of image quality. *It has an
accelerometer built in, a GPS that is probably better than spot,
wireless for speech commands, remote interfaces, etc. fast processor,
lots of ram for large maps and gesture recognition for panning,
zooming, etc. *Web access (where available) for a quick weather update
before launch. *Seems like an opportunity waiting to happen...

I agree, it's a great platform for such an explanation. I've used and
have been programming an iPhone since November. I'm lead programmer
on a product that allows people to write Java programs and compile
them to native code or the iPhone (and also for BREW and Windows
Mobile).


It's something I've given some thought to. I don't have an iPhone and
don't want to pay for the expensive subscription, so I was hoping that the
second version of the iPod Touch would include GPS. Unfortunately it
didn't, so the iPhone is still the only one with that.

I guess it varies from country to country but here in NZ Vodafone have
recently introduced a plan for $40/month (US$27) -- of which nearly
$12 is effectively paying back the $280 subsidy in the $699 purchase
price on an 8 GB iPhone. Or you can pay the full $979 up front and
use it on prepay, which costs you nothing if you don't use the phone.
Data on prepay costs $1 for anything between 200 KB and 10 MB on a
given a calendar day, or 0.5c/KB if you use less than 200 KB. (and $1
a MB if you go past 10 MB :-( )


As for functionality, seems like it would be great to have a moving map,
glide amoeba, thermal finder, and any other goodies that could be stuffed
in there. I agree that it packs a great deal of power and would be a very
capable machine.

To give people an idea what it can do, it's got very much the same
CPU, RAM and disk (flash) specifications as a high end laptop computer
from around 2000 e.g. the "Pismo" G3 PowerBook, or a 2nd generation
iMac DV (the ones that got FireWire and a DVD drive). The main
exception is that the screen is 20% of the size (153600 pixels vs
786432), but against that the 3D hardware is much better -- I grabbed
the X-Plane version a few days ago and it's very smooth.


Unfortunately Apple has some heavy restrictions on what you can do with
the platform, including one that says "Applications may not be designed or
marketed for real time route guidance". I don't know if that would cover
this sort of software or not. From what I hear it's extremely difficult to
get a definitive answer about these things out of Apple without simply
building the app and trying to get it approved. It is possible to work
around these limitations and bypass Apple for distribution, but it tends
to be more work and limit your audience, making it kind of risky.

It's a bit restrictive if you want to put the program into the
AppStore, yes. I believe that the turn by turn guidance restriction
is purely due to licensing terms for the street maps, and possibly
some liability reasons if you go the wrong way down a one-way street.
If there is any justice then that would not apply to an aviation
application.

For such a specialized application I don't know if getting into the
AppStore is such a big thing. It does simplify the "getting paid"
problem hugely, especially for very cheap programs where transaction
costs would normally kill you, but as the market will be small I don't
think you're going to see a soaring application from anyone for $1 or
$2.

Other distribution mechanisms:

- via Cydia. No restrictions at all, but users have to be prepared to
run Pwnage to "jailbreak" their phones. It's easy, but does
potentially void your warranty. (but if there are any problems it's
99.999% likely that restoring the original software will leave no
traces of naughtiness). And developers have to find a way to get paid
and operate their own store, exactly the same as for every non-iPhone
platform.

- via Apple's "ad hoc" distribution mechanism. A developer can
collect up to 100 iPhone serial numbers from other people and directly
send them a working program that they can install locally via iTunes
(on Mac or Windows). This is intended for beta testing or use in
something like a school.

- anyone who pays Apple's $99 fee (and has a Mac) can become a
developer and compile and install any and as many programs as they
want. That's fine for Open Source programs. It's also easily
possible to distribute 99% of such as program to others as a compiled
library that they can't easily reverse engineer or alter.


In short: the logistics and costs of selling and distributing a
program for the iPhone are similar to any other existing mobile
device. Except if you can get it into the AppStore, in which case it
is uniquely cheap, easy, and convenient for both buyer and seller.

On Sep 19, 5:19*pm, (Alan) wrote:
In article writes:
* The FAA prohibits the use in flight in 91.21, but that generally doesn't
apply to VFR flight in small aircraft. *(It essentially forbids use in airliners
and IFR flight.)

* The FCC prohibits use in any aircraft when airborne.

* The iPhone is being "operated" when it is updating map data. *It is even
being operated when it is turned on and talking to cell towers.

Yeah, and no one in a small place ever broke that one.

But it doesn't matter. Any specialized gliding program can easily be
written to preload the relevant maps before takeoff. You do have 8 GB
or 16 GB of storage for such things. That's the equivalent of 10 - 20
CDs of data.


* To be legal, turn it off, or put it in airplane mode, before takeoff ---
and leave it that way until back on the ground.

The GPS and accelerometer and so forth will work just fine in airplane
mode. Unfortunately they both turn off if the screen turns off (by
hitting the button on the top, or after a timeout if you haven't
disabled it).


* Better to save the battery to make a call if you land out.

Operating the GPS continuously eats the battery. Any serious gliding
application will want to run the iPhone off the glider's battery in
any case.

Alan wrote:
I just took my new 3G for a flight. gpstracker application works very
well to track flights on google earth. Also gives Long/Lat speed as
well as altitude every 5 seconds. Check it out.


It might be fun, but it is also quite illegal.


47 cfr 22.925 states:

22.925 Prohibition on airborne operation of cellular telephones.
[snip]

Aside from the use of "airplane mode", I seem to recall a discussion about
this a while ago wherein it was concluded that modern mobile phones don't
meet the FCC's definition of a "cell phone". The reasoning behind this
regulation is that using a cell phone in flight plays merry havoc with the
cell network due to seeing towers farther away than the network is
designed for. But modern networks work differently and are immune to this
problem, and I *think* the conclusion was that the regulation does not
apply to them.

Anyone know more about it? I'd like to know more than my patchwork
memory....

--
Mike Ash
Radio Free Earth
Broadcasting from our climate-controlled studios deep inside the Moon

Bruce Hoult wrote:
On Sep 19, 3:59?am, Michael Ash wrote:
It's something I've given some thought to. I don't have an iPhone and
don't want to pay for the expensive subscription, so I was hoping that the
second version of the iPod Touch would include GPS. Unfortunately it
didn't, so the iPhone is still the only one with that.

I guess it varies from country to country but here in NZ Vodafone have
recently introduced a plan for $40/month (US$27) -- of which nearly
$12 is effectively paying back the $280 subsidy in the $699 purchase
price on an 8 GB iPhone. Or you can pay the full $979 up front and
use it on prepay, which costs you nothing if you don't use the phone.
Data on prepay costs $1 for anything between 200 KB and 10 MB on a
given a calendar day, or 0.5c/KB if you use less than 200 KB. (and $1
a MB if you go past 10 MB :-( )

In the US the only option is with a 2-year subscription starting at
$70/month, not including taxes, which push the minimum bill up near
$80/month. My current subscription is about $45/month after taxes and I'm
looking at ways to reduce even that, as I don't make that many calls.

Unfortunately Apple has some heavy restrictions on what you can do with
the platform, including one that says "Applications may not be designed or
marketed for real time route guidance". I don't know if that would cover
this sort of software or not. From what I hear it's extremely difficult to
get a definitive answer about these things out of Apple without simply
building the app and trying to get it approved. It is possible to work
around these limitations and bypass Apple for distribution, but it tends
to be more work and limit your audience, making it kind of risky.

It's a bit restrictive if you want to put the program into the
AppStore, yes. I believe that the turn by turn guidance restriction
is purely due to licensing terms for the street maps, and possibly
some liability reasons if you go the wrong way down a one-way street.
If there is any justice then that would not apply to an aviation
application.

Yes, but we're talking about Apple here....

The main problem is the risk. It *shouldn't* apply to an aviation
application, but the only way to really find out is to actually build the
app, submit it, and see if they let it through. If they don't, that's a
lot of work potentially lost.

For such a specialized application I don't know if getting into the
AppStore is such a big thing. It does simplify the "getting paid"
problem hugely, especially for very cheap programs where transaction
costs would normally kill you, but as the market will be small I don't
think you're going to see a soaring application from anyone for $1 or
$2.

Other distribution mechanisms:
[snip]

I agree, for the price that you're likely to be charging for such a
program, bypassing Apple altogether would become worthwhile. The trouble
is that there's always a risk that Apple will shut these mechanisms down,
but the smart money always goes with the hackers in this kind of contest,
so it's probably not a significant worry.

--
Mike Ash
Radio Free Earth
Broadcasting from our climate-controlled studios deep inside the Moon

Alan wrote:

It might be fun, but it is also quite illegal.

47 cfr 22.925 states:

What the hell is 47 cfr 22.925???

The FAA prohibits the use in flight

And what the hell is FAA???

Oh, I see! You've just forgotten that there's life outside the USA.

On Fri, 19 Sep 2008 10:25:42 -0500, Michael Ash wrote:


Anyone know more about it? I'd like to know more than my patchwork
memory....

In the UK, anyway, the base station transmission patterns are quite flat
which can stop you getting a signal in the air.

A year or two back I wanted to annoy a friend with the "ring him and hold
phone by the audio vario" trick, but at 3000ft over Huntingdon, i.e.
above a flat bit of Cambridgeshire, there was no signal at all. I was
using a GSM phone, so the radiation pattern was evidently flat enough the
exclude not only Huntingdon masts but also those further away (Cambridge,
Northampton). This makes sense to me. Why should a telco waste
electricity transmitting a hemispherical pattern when a pancake pattern
will give a better signal strength for less radiated power throughout its
service area.

IIRC this has been noticed and commented on in the USA too.


--
martin@ | Martin Gregorie
gregorie. | Essex, UK
org |