Cobra wrote:
Note that Brolin did not say the dedicated hardware concept would be retired. He said the 740 would eventually no longer be supported. There should be nothing surprising or upsetting about that statement--nothing lasts forever, after all.
Since Brolin said that date was still years away, there is plenty of time for AP to identify a replacement hardware platform before that sunset date arrives. While Brolin did not commit to having another dedicated device by then, he also didn't say they wouldn't, so there's probably no reason to get too excited about the situation just yet.
We get that, Cobra--although it feels good to have someone actually SAY it!--but we're trying to emphasize the hardware's importance to us, just in case the Adventure Pilots might possibly begin to think that the hardware limitations are too frustrating to continue with. My own view is that they've done marvelous tricks with the software in the past couple of years; but I'd be content just to have a reliable brightscreen GPS that will get me where I want to go and feed the autopilot.
The truth is, we don't really need the recent bells and whistles, cool as they are. Late in the previous century--before Garmin aviation GPSs and the much nicer Lowrance Airmap 500--I flew all over much of the US and Canada, navigating soooo easily with moving maps on a monochrome Palm PIlot running a program called "Flying Pilot." That made ALL the difference between the new era where we know where we are and the old one where you assumed you were lost as soon as you flew away from the airport after takeoff. (If you collect old aviation magazines there's a review, "Have PalmPilot, Will Travel," in PLANE & PILOT, August 1999, 70–72.) By 2002, Palm Pilots had color displays and Flying Pilot had moving sectional charts. That was very nice, but the quantum navigation change had already occurred.)