Are the New Charts Worse?

It’s not unheard of for new software to be less well liked than earlier versions of the same software. We find this to be the case with Navionics, the very popular marine charting software. In fact, we find the new Navionics software for the west coast of Mexico and the Eastern Caribbean to be so annoying that we’ve kept our old iPad with the old Navionics software because we find that combination so much more user friendly.

What drives us nuts with the new software? First of all, when trying to find distance from one place to another, you’re supposed to tap the screen to set up the first point. But unless you tap it the exactly the right way — and apparently we tap it the wrong way 90% of the time — a big message box that we don’t want to see comes up and dominates the screen. Thanks for nothing. With the old software, figuring out distances was trouble-free and took about two seconds.

The second thing we find irritating about the new Navionics software is that it can be difficult to determine the distance between two places in an area that you’re not in currently. For example, if you’re in San Francisco, and for trip planning purposes you want to know how far it is between Puerto Vallarta and Manzanillo, you have to manipulate the onscreen chart to the P.V. / Manzanillo area. Then you tap the screen to get the first of two ‘distance’ dots. Of course the taps don’t work, and after about 15 seconds, the chart automatically reverts back to the San Francisco area — whether you like it or not.

It’s entirely possible that we’re doing something wrong, but the old software was intuitive and easy. That’s not the case with the new Navionics software.

Furthermore, unless you hold your iPad or device level, the arrow showing what direction you’re going gets all out of whack. Since we’re often monitoring the speed and direction of our boat while lying in our bunk, the direction arrow is worthless — and once again, both frustrating and annoying. We didn’t have this problem with the old software.

It’s true that the new Navionics software has about 100 times more bells and whistles. We, unfortunately, are simple souls who just want to be able to get the basic information easily. And we’re finding we can’t do that easily with the new Navionics. Maybe we’re old and grouchy, but Navionics can keep all their bells and whistles.

Are we just ignorant, or are you having similar problems?