July 29, 2005 04:45
Rather a hot topic, this one!
The GPSNavX team have obviously put in a great deal of work on MacENC, while still managing to deliver loads of point release upgrades to GPSNavX. When I bought GPSNavX, I never thought I was going to get GRIB weather file support OR AIS support for free.. but I have, and I'm grateful. I think everyone agrees that MacENC is a good deal, when compared to commercial PC apps, and has a richer feature set compared to most of the low end / free PC apps.
Having said that, I can understand where existing GPSNavX users are coming from. I s'pose it's all down to marketing & managing customer expectations. I personally, don't have an issue paying $99 for MacENC (once I find UK charts that work with it.. more on this later.) but it's good to feel valued as a customer. Being offered an upgrade discount on any product is seen as a recognition of customer loyalty... and actually has very little to do with saving money! The crazy thing is, if MacENC had an RRP of $129, and an upgrade price of $99, everyone here would probably be happy to pay! Consumer psychology... you gotta love it!!
But for me, the main issue is finding non-US charts. I understand that the majority of GPSNavX users are from the US and get free NOAA charts... therefore buying MacENC, for them, is real no-brainer.
However for us "foreigners" (who I would guess make up a significant minority of users) it's a different issue. I bought GPSNavX immediately after Maptech BSB chart support was announced, because I knew I could purchase European charts in that format, at a reasonable price. At the moment there's no point in me buying MacENC, until I can purchase compatible consumer-priced S57 cartography. From what I understand from previous posts on MacSailing.net and other boards, there are two main obstacles to be overcome: including compatible decryption within MacENC (European charts are encrypted) and getting reasonably priced charts.
Having said all of this, congratulations to GPSNavX for all of their hard work. I'm really looking forward to seeing some detailed screenshots and (if one's being released) having a play with a trial version..... even if I'm limited to "technical appreciation" rather than real use!
The GPSNavX team have obviously put in a great deal of work on MacENC, while still managing to deliver loads of point release upgrades to GPSNavX. When I bought GPSNavX, I never thought I was going to get GRIB weather file support OR AIS support for free.. but I have, and I'm grateful. I think everyone agrees that MacENC is a good deal, when compared to commercial PC apps, and has a richer feature set compared to most of the low end / free PC apps.
Having said that, I can understand where existing GPSNavX users are coming from. I s'pose it's all down to marketing & managing customer expectations. I personally, don't have an issue paying $99 for MacENC (once I find UK charts that work with it.. more on this later.) but it's good to feel valued as a customer. Being offered an upgrade discount on any product is seen as a recognition of customer loyalty... and actually has very little to do with saving money! The crazy thing is, if MacENC had an RRP of $129, and an upgrade price of $99, everyone here would probably be happy to pay! Consumer psychology... you gotta love it!!
But for me, the main issue is finding non-US charts. I understand that the majority of GPSNavX users are from the US and get free NOAA charts... therefore buying MacENC, for them, is real no-brainer.
However for us "foreigners" (who I would guess make up a significant minority of users) it's a different issue. I bought GPSNavX immediately after Maptech BSB chart support was announced, because I knew I could purchase European charts in that format, at a reasonable price. At the moment there's no point in me buying MacENC, until I can purchase compatible consumer-priced S57 cartography. From what I understand from previous posts on MacSailing.net and other boards, there are two main obstacles to be overcome: including compatible decryption within MacENC (European charts are encrypted) and getting reasonably priced charts.
pkluyt Wrote:In Europe official maritime ENCs are either distributed by Primar or IC ENC via their official chart distributers. Unfortunately both have a tight encryption scheme to discourage copying (and tampering) with the data. To work with these ENCs the chart display software needs to be compatible with their licensing set-up that requires user codes, etc. I do hope that the wonderful GPSNavX team are willing to go through this effort....I would also be more than happy to assist where I can, as I'm sure would the majority of European users. I am a business analyst / software architect by profession, so with the correct technical documentation, would be happy to liase with the appropriate goverment offices, and to put together a project for analysis, integration and testing of European S57 charts; but maybe GPSNavX are already progressing with this....
...Being involved in the standardisation of Inland ECDIS and a harmonisation effort with the US Corps of Army Engineers I would be happy to assist the GPSNavX/ MacENC team to do these extensions.
Having said all of this, congratulations to GPSNavX for all of their hard work. I'm really looking forward to seeing some detailed screenshots and (if one's being released) having a play with a trial version..... even if I'm limited to "technical appreciation" rather than real use!