Not sure if anyone has noticed this, but as a long time user of foreflight, for both my personal and work flying, over the last 6mo to a year foreflight has been increasing the prices and decreasing the quality.

Don’t get me wrong, they always charged for a new feature, I had pro, then pro plus, now performance plus, this isn’t new, but this is, removing features and selling them back to you, and using cheaper providers for weather products…the later is more concerning with many GA pilots relying more heavily on foreflights radar as they don’t have real onboard radar.

Removing features and selling them back:
Performance take off and landing data, in the most expensive version of the program, performance plus, you had take off and landing performance data for a good set of aircraft, it was part of why they charged so much for performance plus

Well…I noticed my take off and landing buttons were missing, I asked foreflight

they responded

“
ForeFlight Mobile EFB
ForeFlight
"XXXX we're sorry to hear you feel that way, but no features have been removed from any plan level. Please contact [email protected] so that we can better address your concerns."”

A couple days later this email got sent to all the users




Huh

Cheapening weather products:
Now yesterday I fire up foreflight to check weather for a trip I have, and my radar is all pixilated and the very handy trend lines are gone, these were the lines with dots that show you were the weather is going with a dot for every 20min of where the weather is expected to be, AWSOME feature

Girlfriend has a idea of why it’s all pixilated with no trend data, “maybe your phone data is just slow right now”, mehh, maybe, so I fire off a email to foreflight asking if there is a setting I must have accidentally flipped to get super low res radar and no trend lines, like maybe a data saving feature?


Noooope





So they “upgraded” from this




To this



Now both show the direction the weather is going, the trend lines actually at a glance give you MUCH more info than the new generic arrow, but foreflight is smart, there must be some awsome feature that makes up for having pixilated 2003 looking radar and less information right?

Nope




Hopefully they don’t keep cheapening their product all while increasing prices, I really like foreflght but at this rate and considering every other competitor charges less money and some are even free..

Yeah, Boeing buying them was the beginning of the end, especially for general aviation use.

I agree Foreflight is on a downward vector from a customer experience standpoint since being acquired by Boeing. I've never been a sole source flight plan information type. I've always tried to use multiple sources to get an accurate assessment of the weather.

That being said aviationweather.gov is a very informative site. It takes a bit of time to get good and navigating the site but the information is very useful.

MW

For aviation weather and flight planning, I suggest trying Weathermeister.com. Built by a Vans RV pilot. If you like what you see, the cost is $49 per year. I have been a fan for 15 years. Bruce

Foreflight I use for much more than weather, planning, plates, logbook, planning, fuel burns, etc

I normally also use fltplan too, but yeah the downward vector sucks

I am planning to switch to WingX by Hilton when my current Foreflight subscription runs out.
Just heard of if from a buddy in the airlines.
They advertise free subscription for CFI's and veterans.
Tom

In Foreflights latest announcement of changes via email, they stated that the previous source of radar data is no longer available.

MTV

I have been using FlyQ for over 10 years. They are adding new items on a consistent basis, not removing them. Worth a look for reliability.

If you south of the 49th has challenges those of us above the 49th are in the dark ages. Most of these applications don't offer much for us at all. I carry a paper sectional at all times and it's put "in service" regularly.

Other than the increasingly expensive Foreflight, Fltplan is about the only other reasonable option.

When you are time and data invested in a platform it is very tough too cut ties. I have a Dynon panel, so Garmin Pilot is not an option, but any change would be painful and time consuming. I think FF knows this and is likely making changes that helps their bottom line.

I have an Apple Watch, phone and ipad, hard to see breaking that group either as the cohesion makes my life easier. I would think about a potential Musk/Tesla phone though. I am seriously considering a Garmin D2 Air X watch.

I just don’t see myself leaving ForeFlight, I have so much info loaded in the FF in the form of waypoints and multiple content packs from 3 different sources

I used Garmin Pilot. I think FF is likely a tad bit superior to GP but not by much. The price delta is significant. FF is 240-360 dollars per year - GP is 160 per year for the top package. I think GP is easier to use. This is likely due to my airplane having an all Garmin panel and me being used to the interface. I wish GP had better weather options and a web based interface for flight planning. For regular flight planning and instrument applications it does great.


Josh

And there's the thing for me with Garmin Pilot. I like it, for the most part, and when I fly a plane with other Garmin avionics it's great. When I fly planes with other avionics, it's not so great.

Just got a message about the radar. They’re making it seem like it is just radar data collected by wifi and data that is affected. Should be the same if you have adsb or xm weather. I could be wrong but that was my impression.

I am so invested in ForeFlight that I just keep paying.

What hurts for me is it not being flexible in terms of subscriptions. Four months to install my O360, or three months in Europe away from the plane and I just keep paying. And realistically I only go the the US in the summer but I have to buy a year. Just seems like poor customer service to me.

We all saw this coming when FF sold out. It’s going to turn into less customer care with higher prices.
One day I’ll be heading over to the Garmin products once they get to the same level as FF, the draw back is GP doesn’t work as user friendly my IPad or IPhone.

Has anyone delt with issues with their Iphone or IPad taking longer than usual to get a location lock when opening FF in flight?

My Garmin Pilot ran slow on an old Ipad mini 4. I upgraded the Ipad to a mini 6 last year. No issues now. I had the page upload problem with the MAP display on the old unit. I haven't really had an problems since the upgrade.

I use the GP for data transfer to the 650/355/500 TXi with a 510 card. That takes about 10 minutes. I find the use of the GP for IFR operations to be very nice. I feel like it is faster in terms of button steps compared with FF - at least for IFR ops. I fly with some FF students and it just seems like they fumble trying to get the approach plate and flight plan loaded. Now - it just may be a comfort thing too and knowing how to use the EFB. I know a lot of people who hate on Garmin but I think they have gone to a lot of trouble to make the user interface as pilot friendly as possible.

Josh

About 10 years ago I wound up getting a subscription to Garmin, FF, and Flyq, just to find out what I wanted to stick with. i don't remember everything about all of them, but I stuck with flyq. Still use it, no reason to change.
I know the Boing deal with FF probably sucks for you guys using it. Thats a hard change when you know something like the back of your hand and now feel the need to change....

NineThreeKilo wrote:...and my radar is all pixilated and the very handy trend lines are gone, these were the lines with dots that show you were the weather is going with a dot for every 20min of where the weather is expected to be

Click the gear icon and turn on 4 color wx radar, that takes care of the pixilation. I don't like that I can't turn off the new vector trend dots, yet.

I’m not a power user of any of this stuff, I only have the basic ForeFlight subscription.

That said, I’m old enough to remember NDB approaches as a staple, no GPS, and a PAR here and there. Oh, yeah, and paper approach charts…..and subscriptions.

Man, all I can say is, this stuff is pure magic! It’s hard to believe that a small tablet (or your phone) can provide far more information than a suitcase used to carry.

I’ve used FF since it came out, and the improvements, additions and upgrades since have been nothing short of phenomenal. I explored Garmin Pilot for six months back when, and concluded it was likely a toss up, but since I’d been using FF for a couple years, I was not motivated to learn a new product that does about the same as one I’m using.

Boeing has continued to make improvements to the product. I guess I’ve been fortunate that, at my stage of the game, I’m no longer needing a lot of those improvements.

But, man, what I would have given for this stuff fifty years ago!

MTV

As MTV points out this stuff is nothing short of magic in many ways. And for a couple of tanks of gas a year.

I guess I’m just cheap.