Folks,
Sometimes I feel like I'm in the middle a Republican presidential debate in terms of things being taken way out of context and people shouting at each other (well, at me anyway).
1. SA is in the business of providing apps and ChartData. Each is about 1/2 of our business. Dynon is one of many of the apps or devices that use our data but one of the most important for a lot of reasons including A) A large # of users B) We're in the same building as Dynon and know them well. If anyone thinks we don't pay attention to Dynon users, you're very much mistaken. Suffice it say that I don't read and respond to Aspen or Bendix-King forums (if they even have them). In general, keeping ALL of our ChartData customers happy is a key part of what we do. There is nothing technically different from the way Dynon users use our ChartData than most other OEM users except that Dynon (and FlyQ EFB) use MORE of the data products that we make than anyone else. More data, more time to verify before release and more time to download and copy to the data card (not applicable to iPad apps like FlyQ or ForeFlight). And it probably won't surprise you to learn that, as a group, Dynon users are FAR more vocal than other ChartData users. The squeaky wheel does get oiled. The new version of the DM we're working on now is designed to specifically address concerns mostly raised by Dynon users.
2. There seems to be an impression that we suck in the FAA data and just spit it out mechanically. If that was all it was, everyone would publish data 24 hours after the FAA did. No one does because it's impossible.
A. Seattle Avionics does all the geo-referencing for the approach plates. The FAA does not provide this at all. This takes both automated processing and substantial amount of human work and human triple checking. We're massively paranoid about this and are the only company besides Jepp and Garmin to follow FAA DO-200A protocol for accuracy. This takes time to create and validate every cycle. In something like 10 years of doing this, we've had precisely one case where we were found to have incorrectly geo-referenced a plate. I'm told that Jepp doesn't do so well and I know that ForeFlight doesn't because they've had to issue user alerts about their errors. Again, accuracy is Job #1 and we're extremely proud of our track record there. But it takes time.
B. The new SA Airport Diagrams are entirely human-driven in terms of creation and checking. There is no button to push that magically spits them out. Think of guys behind CAD and GIS systems cross-referencing info with the FAA, user-submitted changes, and several other sources. This is a substantial cost for us to produce and takes time.
C. Even Sectionals and IFR Low/High charts are not entirely provided by the FAA. The FAA provides the original maps but, esp. for the Sectionals, they were never designed to be seamlessly glued together so substantial R&D went into masking and assembling them. The FAA also changes the maps (obviously) so each and every tile (660,000 Sectional tiles alone each cycle) has to be processed, mechanically verified, then human-verified. Again, takes time.
3. Mac. Not sure how many times I can write this but ... I use a Macbook Air as my main machine. I'm typing on one now. As a company that does iOS development, all our devs use Macs. Our sales and support people use Macs. Almost all of our work is done on Macs. We don't make a Data Manager on the Mac for a very, very simple reason -- the DM is a very complex piece of software not a simple download/copy app. Sure we could port it to the Mac but maintaining a Windows and Mac version would be challenging and, as we don't have unlimited resources, I'd rather use those resources to concentrate on the version that affects most users - a Windows version. As I said yesterday, we have a new version of the DM that will be in beta very soon and I'd love to have all of you test it and give us feedback (it won't be out today, I'm afraid). Any comments about us playing big-brother and saying that we know best are entirely off-base. But it is not possible to do everything at once given finite resources so we do focus on things that help the largest numbers of users first. That doesn't preclude doing a Mac version of the DM in the future but we're working on something slightly different that will probably make many of you very happy.
Finally, can we get ChartData out sooner than we do now, sure. And we're working on it. if we got them out on Saturday, would everyone be happy?
Thanks, Steve
