Avoid This: Rosepoint Navigation and Coastal Explorer Review

I have Navionic for the IPAD,which I use with a BadElf GPS chip and a modified Sea Sucker mount, is this a newer version?
 
iNavX is a different company. It's got a bunch more features than the Navionics program. But you have to have the ability for two way communications with your helm nav network (which is what I have been writing about in the other thread).
 
Four Suns said:
Lord knows that simply heading "North" or "South" doesn't work...

I *will* be able to drive the boat from home with my iPad... If I put a camera on it, it'll be like a big 50' RC boat.
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Call the guys from Mythbusters before you try. Might as well get the crash on film for posterity's sake.
 
I just finished installing MaxSea Time Zero..

https://activecaptain.com/store/prodMSTZ.php

All I can say is WOW! I'll send a thank you note to the Rosepoint guys thanking them for there lousy customer service and driving me to this other product. The chart drawing and feature set is absolutely stunning. Can also put up gauges for my Airmar weather instrument as well.
 
Pardon me for jumping in - this thread hit too many keywords that we track and I just got a notice about it.

First, if you're a cruising boater and have problems with just about any software product, especially one that supports ActiveCaptain, write to us. We'll help. I know the owners and developers - many times they have no idea what's being said to customers at the front lines. It doesn't matter whether you got the software from us or purchased it years ago. I'm happy to help.

Not to take anything away from MaxSea Time Zero which is really slick (thanks for purchasing it from us), Coastal Explorer is a nice product too. You weren't treated right. They made a mistake. I'd bet that the real problem is that the upper management at Rose Point are real boaters and they're probably out now on their own boats enjoying the summer.
 
ActiveCaptain said:
Pardon me for jumping in - this thread hit too many keywords that we track and I just got a notice about it.

Not to take anything away from MaxSea Time Zero which is really slick (thanks for purchasing it from us), Coastal Explorer is a nice product too. You weren't treated right. They made a mistake. I'd bet that the real problem is that the upper management at Rose Point are real boaters and they're probably out now on their own boats enjoying the summer.
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That may very well be true, but, it does not eliminate the business owner's responsibility to their customers. Some of us on this forum are business owners and spend time boating. While we cannot control what every employee says to every customer on every day, we can set policies and procedures that give the employee the ability to make a decision to correctly serve a customer in our absence.

If the Rose Point folks have elected to hire substandard help or not to allow that help to make what is an obvious customer service decision, then they have sent me a message, loud and clear. My message back to them is going to be more subtle...I will never do business with them. They will never know of my decision and why I made it; others may follow my lead. And the Rose Point folks will just keep wondering why they cannot grow sales.

I am climbing off my soapbox and going boating...
 
It seems to me (I am a Rocket Scientist) that there are some "Shenanigans" going on at Rose Point, either someone in shipping or elsewhere in the company that is copying discs and selling them. How else would Gary get a CD that was registered to someone else?
 
I've been CEO of two smaller software companies (~50 employees each) and a senior executive at a very large (public) security software company (that's my previous career) and I know that piracy is a problem that is always being fought. On two occasions, one of them at the large security software company, we had internal employees selling license keys out the back door. However, the real problem is with hackers that figure out how license keys are generated and provide downloads for these hacks. Go to google... type in

Rose Point Navigation Coastal Explorer keygen
Rose Point Navigation Coastal Explorer key crack
Rose Point Navigation Coastal Explorer warez

You'll find all kinds of downloads and keys that work. Now you may get a virus... but some of these places are from over seas and they actually work. I haven't tried it with Coastal Explorer but I know with other products I've been involved with, it's a never ending battle.

So... I have some experience in the software space and for the life of me can't imagine what would compel a company, regardless of the level of the employee or if the company is large or small, to imply to a customer who obviously bought a product direct as they being a corrupt individual. It really speaks to the internal culture of the company. Also, if a company has keys that are hackable, you can't push that responsibility off on the customer base and service who registers the key as "first come first serve."

I'm guessing if the owners/senior management of the company are, in fact, boaters... they are probably sailboaters.
 
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Gary, wouldn't it be "Pretty Stupid" for someone to purchase a Bootleg Copy and then Generate a Bootleg License Key and then Register it at the Company Site?
(Unless your a "Blowboater")
 
Bugsy24 said:
Gary, wouldn't it be "Pretty Stupid" for someone to purchase a Bootleg Copy and then Generate a Bootleg License Key and then Register it at the Company Site?
(Unless your a "Blowboater")
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Not really... think about Symantec/Norton Antivirus. You have to register the software in order to get updates and antivirus software is fairly useless without getting updates. Happens all the time. The difference here is products like Norton and Windows from Microsoft is the software registers automatically online when you install it. The version of Coastal Explorer I had did not do that.... but one would think if you bought a license key direct from the company, they would tie that key to your name on their end at the time of sale... but that would be too much common sense. Frankly, my key may have been stolen before I even bought it from them. Who knows... I would love to know the date the "other user" registered my key and see if it was before I bought it from Rose Point.
 
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Four Suns said:
I'm guessing if the owners/senior management of the company are, in fact, boaters... they are probably sailboaters.[/QUOTE]

I will be sending you a bill to replace the keyboard on my Fujitsu Lifebook. I am unable to remove the Coke Zero and snot combination that came spurting out my nose when I read this...
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Life is full of surprises. Navionics screwed me and now I have charts and tides with active captain. Which by the way is freaking awesome to have on the iPad, even though charts and tides is pretty limited. Anyway, even if Gary did buy the software from igor in Russia, they still lost a $99 upgrade sale turning a pirate into a customer. Either way their response was stupid.
 
Hey, I started out by saying that Gary wasn't treated right. Rose Point made a mistake, period. They honestly want to do the right thing - but in this case, they blew it.

By the way Gary, the MaxSea licensing system allows you to install the software on 3 different computers (they don't tell you that). We always suggest that it should be completely installed on another computer as a backup or as a home planning tool if you keep a computer on the boat. It's one of the nice features of the software.

For what it's worth, everyone I know at Rose Point has a trawler or large motor cruiser. I'm not aware of any sailors in the company although the VP of sales used to be big in racing sailboats 20 years ago.
 
ActiveCaptain said:
By the way Gary, the MaxSea licensing system allows you to install the software on 3 different computers (they don't tell you that). We always suggest that it should be completely installed on another computer as a backup or as a home planning tool if you keep a computer on the boat. It's one of the nice features of the software.
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Thank you. That is really good to know. I have my boat computer here and I'm trying to get all the upgraded NMEA stuff (just put on an ACR Nauticast AIS transponder) and I'm hoping to have it all wired up today. I'm really impressed with the draw speed and graphics on Max Sea.. My "new" PC I just built has a 100 GB solid state drive and so Windows actually boots in about 15 seconds (no joke) and Max Sea loads in about 3-4 seconds... incredible... Makes me want to have a 30" display on the bridge.

I'm a Mac guy now... It would really be nice if there was a product like Max Sea or Coastal Explorer for the Mac... iNavX doesn't cut... Probably not a real lucrative market though with all the tablet stuff out there...

I actually got serious about using Active Captain this summer... quit impressive.
 
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Why do you think inavx doesn't cut it? I'm not using it to it's full extent, but you can have raster charts, navionics charts, weather overlay, instruments, autopilot control. Not the cheapest setup when you load it up, but pretty damn powerful for an iPad app. If they would just incorporate active captain, I would load it up and ditch the others.
 
Turtlesboat said:
Why do you think inavx doesn't cut it? I'm not using it to it's full extent, but you can have raster charts, navionics charts, weather overlay, instruments, autopilot control. Not the cheapest setup when you load it up, but pretty damn powerful for an iPad app. If they would just incorporate active captain, I would load it up and ditch the others.
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I'm sorry... I didn't mean iNavX. I think iNavX is pretty good. I was referring to MacENC which is the same company and basically the same feature set for the Mac. The rendering engine for MacENC is really crappy...

Now that I'm playing around with Max Sea, I think they are all sub standard now.. Max Sea Time Zero looks exactly like a Furuno NavNet3D chart plotter (probably because it is the same software).
 
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