![]() While Apple remains a dominant force in the market, consumers have numerous other options, with Android-based devices making up the most common ones. In this case, it’s that Android-powered gadgets tend to have a variety of hardware interfaces, as opposed to the common interface (with a few connector/interface changes) on Apple products. On top of that, backward compatibility (meaning that older devices will run current apps) is better with Apple. Of course, this is also true for iOS devices, but there are far fewer versions and devices with which to be concerned. So when creating and supporting apps for Android devices, developers need to take into consideration not only the latest version of the OS but older versions too. Many Android devices, even brand-new ones on store shelves, have versions of the operating system that are a couple of generations old. One follows the money, and the money follows the marketplace.Īnother issue facing developers is the lack of commonality in the Android operating system itself. Those applications, for good or for ill, have taken a back (way, way far back) seat to those companies’ iOS products. Others, such as Seattle Avionics, Garmin and Hilton Software, created apps - or had pre-existing programs - for other operating systems. Some of those app developers, such as ForeFlight, focused exclusively on devices that run on Apple’s iOS platform, which, for all intents and purposes, are iPhones and iPads. With hundreds of thousands of these mobile tablets out in the world, the environment was ripe for aviation app developers to do their thing, and they did just that, coming out with a range of aviation apps that turned an everyday tablet into a powerful in-cockpit aviation tool. Introduced in 2010, the iPad took the computing world by storm, offering consumers a big-screen, touch-controlled tablet that worked easily out of the box. It is due to the wide popularity of the iPad itself. The biggest reason for Apple’s aviation dominance is even simpler than that. The ubiquitous software from the Californian personal computer giant is stable, widely available, controlled by one company instead of dozens and free with the purchase of an Apple device. There are good reasons why the leading aviation apps are built to run on Apple’s iOS mobile operating system. ![]() Today, there are several aviation apps with individual features that approach or, in some cases, match those of the best apps built for iOs. When I set out to write a roundup of the Android apps available for aviation, I was ready for a quick assignment, as the words “Android” and “aviation” have not, up to now, been closely associated. ![]()
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