I agree with you. If I had known Raymarine's love of proprietary, lock-you-in, charge-as-much-as-they-please techniques, I probably wouldn't have bought an i70 and wind instrument. (It's pretty astounding how much they charge per foot for a backbone cable, and even the little plastic caps you use to terminate it)
I can see how for some people that aspect isn't that important though, there are other things to consider like hardware quality and reliability. Being in the software industry it was just amazing to see the effort Raymarine has made to maintain incompatibility / closed systems. In software if you have a common transfer protocol that companies are building their own proprietary things on top of, it's either intentional or incompetence. Raymarine doesn't seem incompetent so I have to conclude it's intentional. Apple is actually a good example of a software company that uses similar proprietary lock-in techniques to create a closed system. Just take for example their proprietary charging port and the latest iphone decision to remove an open standard (audio jack) in favor of a closed standard (Apple charging port with proprietary audio jack adapter). People that go Apple are deciding that paying a premium for equivalent hardware is worth it for whatever benefits they believe they get out of it (ex, better UX design?). With Apple it's not as bad though because they at least try to make things easier for the consumer. The good news is I think software updates to an i70 are much less important than updates to a chartplotter. Wind algorithms don't change that often, and I'm basically happy with the UI. Charts and charting UI do change often. My three Android devices cost less than a Raymarine MFD and provide triple redundancy. -Patrick S/V Violet Hour, Seattle, WA C&C LF38 On Tue, Sep 20, 2016 at 9:00 AM, <cnc-list-requ...@cnc-list.com> wrote: > ---------- Forwarded message ---------- > From: Dave S <syerd...@gmail.com> > To: "C&c Stus List" <cnc-list@cnc-list.com> > Cc: > Date: Tue, 20 Sep 2016 11:47:59 -0400 > Subject: Re: Stus-List Raymarine exits the instrument, vhf and > Joel, > > That's pretty much the nut of it, there is not the same critical mass or > informed user base as with mainstream mobile computing, (and this IS > mobile computing) and today, the tradeoff exists between the benefits (many > contrived) of single-brand solutions, and the benefits of a more open > approach. Still, they have to strategize about their new competition - a > $50, full featured chartplotter, (yes, in a relatively fragile device) on > technologies with very short (relatively) life cycles and blistering > innovation rates. Amazing really. > > I dealt with the fragility issues by buying a lifeproof case and RAM > mount. Pretty rugged stuff, and fine for my application - summer sailing > on Lake Ontario. > > I differ a bit on the software upgrade opinion - as with cars this could > be a safety and liability issue for the manufacturers. If they make it > unreasonably difficult, they have a problem. something else for them to > grapple with. > > Other than chartplotters, tablet based Apps are thin on the ground so far, > partly because of the small market, partly the "closed shop" of the major > players, and - somewhat related- partly because "open" wireless N2K is in > its infancy, though this is changing. The next few years will be > interesting! > > Dave >
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