some interesting iphone developements

Skip said:
I still have no idea what a Goth is, or why anybody who blessedly wakes up in America each and every day would denigrate Jimmy Buffet.
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I'll give you my reason. He started, provided startup funding, and continued funding the anti-boating club "Save the Manatee" that is working to ruin boating in Florida. Once the greenies ruin it in one place, they'll go national. A few years ago, the "Save the Bay" boobies tried to put an on the water speed limit on Barnegat Bay because the powerboat were ruining the environment by going too fast, or some BS like that.

Regarding Goth. There's real Goths and phony 20th century weirdo goths. (small G) Hope that helps. Which type did you need more info about? (Yes, 20th century. It's a 1980s thing.) Well, I still have my 1983 Imperial, so I guess they can have their 1980s clothing, makeup and crap.


Best regards,
Frank
 
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Back to the iPhone thing (sans stupid talk by the Newton crowd), the thing I like about the iPhone/iTouch is that it is the first small device that can be very useful mobile data terminal. I've messed around with 100's of these little devices over the last five years and Apple really got it right.

As far as boating, what I would like is the ability to have my NMEA data be broadcast on the boat by wifi and then have some apps on the device to display and interact with that data as I wish. If someone else is on the bridge driving, I can see what is going on if I'm down below resting or watching a movie or something. I haven't really done any research if there is such a monster as a NMEA/wifi bridge server but that's what I want. I know Raymarine has a wireless handheld for their autopilot but this could be more generic... The chartplotting would be a window to just see where you are and where you are going... etc. etc...

The other mobile devices just don't have the horsepower on the graphics side and the OS is generally crippled.... but that's a whole other thread...
 
Skip said:
In the interest of general quality of the CSR site:
I promise not to tell anybody how to fix anything on their non Sea Ray. I've never onwed another type of cruiser, and guessing is not useful.
Skip
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In fairness Skip, many boat systems are generic and your experiences could be useful.
 
Gosh this is entertaining....(and I don't own an Iphone)

Just curious...does anyone know which cell provider has the most customers?
 
Four Suns said:
As far as boating, what I would like is the ability to have my NMEA data be broadcast on the boat by wifi and then have some apps on the device to display and interact with that data as I wish. If someone else is on the bridge driving, I can see what is going on if I'm down below resting or watching a movie or something. I haven't really done any research if there is such a monster as a NMEA/wifi bridge server but that's what I want. I know Raymarine has a wireless handheld for their autopilot but this could be more generic... The chartplotting would be a window to just see where you are and where you are going... etc. etc...
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Displaying the data should not be that hard. Overlaying position, heading, course, speed, etc, on a chart is a bit more tricky.

That would require getting the chart, rasterizing it, converting to a compressed image that could be served to a generic handheld. Or the handheld could fetch the chart via wifi from the server and integrate it with broadcast data. Sending the data is easy, just stream NMEA 0183 sentence structure. All bets are off with NMEA 2000, which uses a proprietary, we're-not-going-to-tell-unless-you-join-and-buy-the-spec-gimme-the-money sentence format.

Sounds like a fun project, but I don't see much commercial potential for it. How many guys have a navigational PC, wifi, and iPhone for their boats?

Best regards,
Frank C
 
fc3 said:
Sounds like a fun project, but I don't see much commercial potential for it. How many guys have a navigational PC, wifi, and iPhone for their boats?
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Based on the number of people that seem to be experts on it... LOTS!

I'm not sure on the technology and algorithms used for displaying and quilting navigational chart information. However Rosepoint does it for Coastal Explorer, it is wicked fast and works great. MacENC on the other hand is downright awful. I've seen some open source code out there to read in and display ENC data but I'm sure it isn't optimal and "optimal" would have to be machine dependent.... My gut tells me MacENC is using some generic rendering engine like that.

As far as the broadcasting of NMEA data over wifi, it sure doesn't seem like rocket science... however, it would still require some server to collect/buffer the data and then stick it out on the IP network... In a simple world, this could be some little box like a print server type of thing with a NMEA in/out port and an ethernet port.... Get crackin' Frank... you can have it done by lunch.

Then we can use that fancy dancy new SDK from Apple to write some cool display apps for the iPhone/iTouch
 
Gary a couple years ago we had a program sending video surveillance video to a wireless Microsoft Pocket PC through a browser. I can find out what we used. Essentially you may not be able to interact with it, but you may be able to view what your plotter is showing.

We sell and install Access control and Video Surveillance and this was used so a Security Guard could make his rounds and view the cameras on the opposite side of the building.

On another note.....I don't care what kind of boat someone has, I feel all are welcome. Many people here on this site have owned different brands and types of boats. There is a wealth of knowledge here to learn from and an abundance of BS to filter through. I like this site because we can focus in on our SeaRay related issues but also gleen perspective from the others.

The key for me is that I don't offer advice that I don't have experience with. I may offer ideas to research, but it's in an effort to help solve a problem/issue. I have also learned how to weed out the bad advice offered here by the brain trust's collective jabs, barbs and lines of questioning.

There is a big difference between the "Sage experienced advice" and the "Know it all impecac(sp)" and a couple of questions from the "Gang" here will guide you to one side of the canyon or the other
 
Bottom Line said:
Gosh this is entertaining....(and I don't own an Iphone)

Just curious...does anyone know which cell provider has the most customers?
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Same here... as far as which cell phone provider has the most customers... depends on who you ask... on this forum... :huh:
 
My personal opinion is that browsers have no business on a mobile device... and never will... The only way that data on a mobile device works is when there is a rich application on the device and minimal data interacts with the application... Imagine if RIM made you use a browser to get your email... it would suck.

I wrote an article a year or so ago for CNET on this...
 
Gary, that would be sweet.

Another cool thing would be if you could drop an active pin on your location, send it to friends in a group and have that pop up on their device with your boat name. tap on someone's pin and send a message to them. like a nautical location ichat.
 
I don't know about the no browsers thing. on the iPhone, I use webapps a lot. They are just a customized browser setup for the iphone and many work great.
 
TurtleTone said:
I don't know about the no browsers thing. on the iPhone, I use webapps a lot. They are just a customized browser setup for the iphone and many work great.
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blec.

You have to have connectivity for them to EVERYTHING including rendering a company logo...

BLEC.
 
True, it is a pain on the subway. an app would be able to store the info locally (like visual voice mail) and you can access it at will, even with no signal.
 
Ok, so who here wants to write some code? Maybe we could put a fund together and commission a company to write an app for us? Then we could sell the app online, make our money back.
 
He's still trying to finish up that newton app.
 
I'd do it for free for the fun of it but I'm not gonna buy an apple so guess you'll have to find an apple fan boy to do it :lol:
 
Come on, you know you're a fanboy.

I've been watching the videos on iPhone university to get an idea of how everything is put together and interacts with each layer. If I can get through them without falling asleep, I should have a sense of what can be done. It's about 8 hours worth of video, so far i'm still on hour one. My eyes feel heavy.
 
Four Suns said:
As far as boating, what I would like is the ability to have my NMEA data be broadcast on the boat by wifi and then have some apps on the device to display and interact with that data as I wish.
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Maybe I'm misunderstanding - but isn't this what a bluetooth GPS already does. I have a Garmin GPS10 for my airplane that sits up on the dash and wirelessly broadcasts an NMEA stream to a Fujitsu P1610 notebook which displays air charts and the like.

You could do the same thing by putting a GPS 10 up on the bridge (or anywhere with satellite vis. and having either a Palm/iPAQ/iPhone or laptop for that matter just about anywhere on the boat getting the stream from the GPS. I would imagine there is charting software out there that already that does this for boats...but it has definitely been effectively used in airplanes for about 5 or 6 years now.

The little GPS10 is cheap, about the size of a cigarette pack, runs on batteries for about 20 hours...but has a 12v plug-in for unlimited life.
 
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