One of the interesting things about writing software is how many times real world experience proves you dead wrong. I have long held the opinion that if your application requires and Internet connection, and making connection attempts costs the user, e.g. battery power, then it’s better for your application to crash when one isn’t available than to attempt reconnects. This, it turns out, results in really, really bad user experiences. Accordingly, FlightWatch 1.3.2 and FlightWatch Lite 1.3.7 now throw toasts or notifications on the screen, and otherwise complain loudly when a connection fails, but do not crash. Additionally FlightWatch Lite1.3.7 contains fixes for a few bugs found while developing the last release of the paid version.
Now on to the future. I mostly consider FlightWatch Lite feature complete. In the near future it will get the Metar Decoder, and may get TAF support, However it was intended as a demo, and as an app that would serve those who do not have advanced WX reporting needs. Additionally, there aren’t that many interesting features left that don’t require me to maintain some infrastructure server side, or that don’t take more work than I’m willing to give out for free.
FlightWatch however, is going to be getting some really cool features. Trend reporting will be in the next feature release. In the mid term, I have access to the AF/D information in machine parsable form, hence I will be able to present runway and X-wind component information. TAFs and SIGMETs are available, and as soon as I find a UI I like they will be made available. Slightly more long term is Route Plans and WX reports along that route, as well as integration with NOTAMs (either natively or via another app). All in all, it looks to be a really fun time to be an aviation app developer