I have to say I find SD a fantastic product and criticising something or someone is the easiest job in the world, so I list these suggestions as desirable not essential but they would ultimately enhance the product in my humble opinion. (My comments are based on experience having used both Garmin & Flymap (which runs on Win CE) products previously).

Ideas & suggestions:

• Make the projected time/distance line from the a/c symbol bold/thicker as it is nearly impossible to see clearly in flight, particularly the time/distance makers on the projected line.
• If the compass rose display is suppressed a heading correction indicator is displayed instead, this display is too small. This combined with the above does rather detract from the devices primary reason of existence – a navigation aid. Flymap places a big bold blue arrow at the bottom of the screen pointing towards the waypoint, a similar solution but so much easier to see at a glance due to size and boldness.
• If used the compass rose display and its indicators are too small for in flight use, Flymap overlays a transparent compass for an alternative idea.
• You might consider a Height Above Terrain (HAT) display. This is extremely useful data, particularly for farm strip flying. Again Flymap implement this option well.

• On reaching close to a waypoint, the change over to the next leg should happen sooner (in my opinion), rather than waiting till right overhead. As we are all using this system as a VFR aid we will have identified the turning point within 1 mile at worst and will be focussing on the new leg, it would be ideal to see the route guidance swap over to the new leg when close to the turning point or an option to do so.
• An option for airfield plates to auto load & display when reaching an airfield (this idea is implemented within flymap). Basically reduce the “touch” time in flight to a minimum.
• The SD onscreen keyboard is really bad (not your fault as it is the built in Win CE system). Not that the Flymap system is brilliant but at least in can be used with a finger in flight if needed and their system is also running on Win CE.

Any just ideas to place into the melting pot!
Thanks for listening.

Graham 

Very good suggestions.

Can I add a request to make the ILS lines somewhat bolder for the same reasons above? Also to note that the Keyboard issue has been resolved for now, thanks to our friend Stevelup. Please refer to Finger Friendly SIP thread, under SkyDemon Mobile, where the brand new, newly released, shifted Keyboard can be downloaded.

Very Newbytheway

DurhamTeaseAirport

Good suggestions especially re making lines thicker/bolder

We have indeed increased the thickness and lightness of the HSI lines ready for the next version.

I am wary of posts where everything appears to be too small; it makes me wonder whether the unit is actually configured correctly with the DPI set up as per our third party support page.

In response to the Sky Demon team' comments. The unit I am using is a factory supplied SD device so I have to assume it was supplied correctly configured with DPI etc?



The next obvious topic is eye sight, well my last test was a few months ago and it showed perfect so we can rule that out.



I take point about cluttering the screen with thick bold lines but I am sure it could be mocked up in development environment to test the look and feel.



GPS is a device you glance at not stare at as we should be applying rule one - looking out. So our brain needs to quickly acquire data with a glance, not dissimilar to a car and monitoring speed, though flying clearly has more dimensions and data to deal with.



Anyway just more thoughts and ramblings......

Tim, I missed your posting above on the 23rd June 2011, and now would like extend my sincerest gratitude for making lines more discernible. This is important for exactly the very good reasons mentioned so succinctly by grahamfern directly above this posting. I look forward to flying with the next release. This year, SD has, yet again, undergone some milestone changes & my guess is that the lists of suggestions will be dwindling from now on.

Very Newbytheway

DurhamTeaseAirport

The beta version of SkyDemon 2.2 that was posted this morning does make lines thicker and brighter in various places including on the HSI. It might be worthwhile giving it a try.

Absolutely...Wilco...Thanks

Very Newbytheway

DurhamTeaseAirport

Just tried the beta release. A great improvement for the SD mobile device. My suggestions for the final release would be make the heading font at the bottom the same size as the font on the left for speed & altitude etc and make the time/distance projection line a pixel or two wider (particularly the division marks).



A great product - thank you for your development work. Here's hoping for a 7" screen unit???