iOS apps for Solo

[Justin Miller]

Hi, I am one of the Co-founders of Airnest. I wanted to post this and see what iOS apps the community has available and are using for the solo's.

To be perfectly honest I am trying to gauge whether or not there is a market for us making our Airnest app available for 3dr solo, if it would have any interest from Solo pilots.

 

[Marich]

I for one am interested! I've seen your app and am impressed. We've got nothing like it for iOS - for that sort of function it's gotta be an Android device running Tower.
Sign me up!

 

[J R]

Hi, I am one of the Co-founders of Airnest. I wanted to post this and see what iOS apps the community has available and are using for the solo's.

To be perfectly honest I am trying to gauge whether or not there is a market for us making our Airnest app available for 3dr solo, if it would have any interest from Solo pilots.

Justin,

I'd sure take a serious look at it.

Jerry

 

[RikMiddle]

plus one... please do.

 

[Eric Sheehan]

I'm in

 

[DancingHands123]

I'm interested.

 

[JrexT]

I'm interested


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

[QuadCoyote]

Definitely interested. Before I bought the Solo I seriously considered going with a Phantom 3 Pro and using Airnest. Your app looks great, and I think it's an awesome deal at $24.99.

 

[Maddog]

I'll buy it!! Looks good!

 

[Bob I.]

Count me in!

 

[SROlmeda]

Please do! +1

 

[Jubalr]

Hi, I am one of the Co-founders of Airnest. I wanted to post this and see what iOS apps the community has available and are using for the solo's.

To be perfectly honest I am trying to gauge whether or not there is a market for us making our Airnest app available for 3dr solo, if it would have any interest from Solo pilots.

Not sure if you are familiar with the Tower app for Android, but it is a very powerful app for mission planning. You can draw a flight plan free style, do structure scans, orbits, field surveys, multi-point missions with altitude and speed changes, etc. As you would expect, there are a great deal of iOS users here that have to buy an Android tablet to use Tower and I'm sure they would eagerly support a similar app for iOS.

 

[Justin Miller]

Not sure if you are familiar with the Tower app for Android, but it is a very powerful app for mission planning. You can draw a flight plan free style, do structure scans, orbits, field surveys, multi-point missions with altitude and speed changes, etc. As you would expect, there are a great deal of iOS users here that have to buy an Android tablet to use Tower and I'm sure they would eagerly support a similar app for iOS.

I am indeed familiar with the tower app, though I haven't used it. Our's doesn't have all of the feature sets, and wouldn't initially, but we are continuing to build features. There are some interesting things that we may be able to do with Solo that we cannot do with the DJI product line and are not available anywhere else. So we would at least bring some value to the table other than being an iOS GS. I'm not going to jump into details until I determine whether it will be possible with the pixhawk & solo. I do enjoy developing for the pixhawk however.

 

[J R]

I am indeed familiar with the tower app, though I haven't used it. Our's doesn't have all of the feature sets, and wouldn't initially, but we are continuing to build features. There are some interesting things that we may be able to do with Solo that we cannot do with the DJI product line and are not available anywhere else. So we would at least bring some value to the table other than being an iOS GS. I'm not going to jump into details until I determine whether it will be possible with the pixhawk & solo. I do enjoy developing for the pixhawk however.

Justin,

Quality and stability is what I'd be looking for. Too many of these flight apps are very lacking in serious stability. I've been an Alpha and beta tester for several apps on a different platform and the single biggest issue I've seen has been stability. A rush to develop and deploy apps that are not thoroughly thought out, developed and tested. They are haphazardly rushed to market.

Many developers get so consumed with adding features that the nucleus of the product gets compromised. We saw this blatantly exposed with the "follow me" fiasco. Consumers wanted it and all of the developers rushed it to market. To this day "follow me" really doesn't work effectively and probably won't for some time. I never had an interest in it anyway but that was the "thing" to have a while ago and it was nothing but a mess.

Quality and stability at all costs, adding features slowly, carefully and one at at time would certainly work for me. I for one will sacrifice features for stability. Just my two cents.

Jerry

 

[Justin Miller]

Justin,

Quality and stability is what I'd be looking for. Too many of these flight apps are very lacking in serious stability. I've been an Alpha and beta tester for several apps on a different platform and the single biggest issue I've seen has been stability. A rush to develop and deploy apps that are not thoroughly thought out, developed and tested. They are haphazardly rushed to market.

Many developers get so consumed with adding features that the nucleus of the product gets compromised. We saw this blatantly exposed with the "follow me" fiasco. Consumers wanted it and all of the developers rushed it to market. To this day "follow me" really doesn't work effectively and probably won't for some time. I never had an interest in it anyway but that was the "thing" to have a while ago and it was nothing but a mess.

Quality and stability at all costs, adding features slowly, carefully and one at at time would certainly work for me. I for one will sacrifice features for stability. Just my two cents.

Jerry

Jerry, may I ask what apps you have tested? No need to denigrate anything, I was unaware of any iOS apps for solo? If you are referring to android apps no need to list them here. I agree, stability is vital. Of course there would be a public beta test for us prior to launch. I would likely coordinate that through this forum for those interested should we proceed. I did this same thing for our existing DJI app with the phantompilots forum. Frankly I am uninterested in follow me because there is currently no good way to do it. The GPS coming from an iOS device isn't that good, which means you are following the controller, at least in the DJI Case. However this is not something that is interesting to me, it needs a good third party GPS receiver in my view to plan on someone. I have heard of a few companies working on that.

 

[J R]

Jerry, may I ask what apps you have tested? No need to denigrate anything, I was unaware of any iOS apps for solo?

Justin,

I think I said a different platform. I was speaking about the "white" guys. I was using it for reference purposes. I have not invested in your product on that platform as I'm very satisfied with the product I'm now using and I got a bit burned out on testing the many apps available over there. I've purchased at least a10-12 apps on that side. I use only one for all of my personal flying.

Jerry

 

[Justin Miller]

Justin,

I think I said a different platform. I was speaking about the "white" guys. I was using it for reference purposes. I have not invested in your product on that platform as I'm very satisfied with the product I'm now using and I got a bit burned out on testing the many apps available over there. I've purchased at least a10-12 apps on that side. I use only one for all of my personal flying.

Jerry

Ahh, i got you, 10 to 12 is a lot, understood why you might be burned out.

 

[J R]

it needs a good third party GPS receiver in my view to plan on someone. I have heard of a few companies working on that.

Justin,

The only one that I think has actually figured out a real way for "follow me" to work the way it would really need to is Ken over at UF but it would be far too complicated and expensive to design and implement it. Now, that information is about a year old so others may have figured out a better way. I gave up on UF about that time for the reasons I put in my previous post. I was totally against going down that path while putting off more important stability issues. In my opinion, he got to caught up on adding features because others were nipping at his heels. Not sure how things are going over there now. Ken is a really nice guy though. An honest, hard-working and stand-up guy. Good luck with your endeavor. I'll buy it and give it a go if you put it out there.

Jerry

 

[erikgraham]

I am indeed familiar with the tower app, though I haven't used it. Our's doesn't have all of the feature sets, and wouldn't initially, but we are continuing to build features. There are some interesting things that we may be able to do with Solo that we cannot do with the DJI product line and are not available anywhere else. So we would at least bring some value to the table other than being an iOS GS. I'm not going to jump into details until I determine whether it will be possible with the pixhawk & solo. I do enjoy developing for the pixhawk however.

I think there is a need for a simple iOS app for Solo that provides the kind of mission planning you do. Instead of attempting feature parity with Tower, keep it simple and easy to use. Tower can be a bit overwhelming and isn't really appropriate for new users. But the Solo app and it's smart shots are a bit too basic for a lot of folks. So I think there is room for a mission planning app that doesn't include the more complex features and, for example, doesn't expose over 100 params.

You'll need to get to market pretty quickly though. I wouldn't be surprised if 3DR will have Tower ported over to iOS within 3 to 6 months.

In terms of pricing, I'd keep it somewhere between $9.99 and $19.99 (parrots mission planner for the Bebop 2 is 19.99), with in app purchases to unlock additional features (just don't get too greedy nickel and diming users for ever new feature).

 

[Maddog]

I think there is a need for a simple iOS app for Solo that provides the kind of mission planning you do. Instead of attempting feature parity with Tower, keep it simple and easy to use. Tower can be a bit overwhelming and isn't really appropriate for new users. But the Solo app and it's smart shots are a bit too basic for a lot of folks. So I think there is room for a mission planning app that doesn't include the more complex features and, for example, doesn't expose over 100 params.

You'll need to get to market pretty quickly though. I wouldn't be surprised if 3DR will have Tower ported over to iOS within 3 to 6 months.

In terms of pricing, I'd keep it somewhere between $9.99 and $19.99 (parrots mission planner for the Bebop 2 is 19.99), with in app purchases to unlock additional features (just don't get too greedy nickel and diming users for ever new feature).

Wow Erik- I thought you were in my brain on this one! I totally agree to keep it simple and easy to use. (It appears to be that way now).
Don't try to compete with Tower- we don't need another one. Sometimes Tower is a little overwhelming, so something more advanced than smart shots but easier than Tower would be great!

Airnest looks like it is more "fun" than Tower. Tower is a great program but not really "fun" to program a flight. Airnest would be a great fit!