Best apps like Saint Louis University

Room to ImproveCommon complaints summarized from real App Store user reviews

• 🐛 Crashes frequently
• 🐛 Does not load correctly
• 🐛 Poor graphics
• 🐛 No databases
• 🐛 Difficult to use
• 🐛 Crashes on startup
• 🐛 Useless without database
• 🐛 Simulator stinks
• 🐛 Frequent crashes
• 🐛 Hard to use
• 🐛 Not too great
• 🐛 Worthless
• 🐛 Problematic
• 🐛 Previous app better
• 🐛 Junk trainers
• 🐛 Fairly useless
• 🐛 Does not work on iPad2
• 🐛 Not a good app
• 🐛 Freezes the iPad
• 🐛 Can’t control simulator altitude
• 🐛 Heading up not working
• 🐛 Needs updating
• 🐛 No connection to X-plane
• 🐛 Terrible app
• 🐛 Does goofy things
• 🐛 Won’t do setup correctly
• 🐛 Almost wish I hadn’t bought Avidyne
• 🐛 Poor app
• 🐛 Pretty useless
• 🐛 Terribly difficult to use
• 🐛 Needs documentation
• 🐛 Still crashes the iPad
• 🐛 Memory issues
• 🐛 Course slider covered
• 🐛 Not usable
• 🐛 Demo app stuck at zero altitude
• 🐛 Lousy documentation
• 🐛 Stupid update
• 🐛 Hard to use knobs
• 🐛 Tutorials don't match unit
• 🐛 Flight plan tutorial mismatch
• 🐛 Can’t fly lesson
• 🐛 Too frustrating
• 🐛 Doesn’t work
• 🐛 Can’t get it to start
• 🐛 Altitude control missing on Mac
• 🐛 Simulator useless
• 🐛 Won’t climb
• 🐛 Can’t track autopilot
• 🐛 Won’t track FMS
• 🐛 Artificial traffic alerts
• 🐛 Terrain alerts
• 🐛 Barely usable for training
• 🐛 Where is PC version?
• 🐛 Frustrating
• 🐛 Can’t save flight plans
• 🐛 Inputs difficult
• 🐛 Not enough memory
• 🐛 Not stable
• 🐛 Can’t figure out IFD440
• 🐛 Needs TLC before release
• 🐛 Not capturing altitudes
• 🐛 Unusable until bugs fixed
• 🐛 Crashing constantly
• 🐛 Annoying to set location
• 🐛 Brittle app
• 🐛 Useless without database
• 🐛 Requires Jeppesen account
• 🐛 No database loaded
• 🐛 Does not work on iPad Pro
• 🐛 Input lag
• 🐛 Graphics poor
• 🐛 Setup incorrect
• 🐛 Uninstalled and reinstalled many times
• 🐛 No change
• 🐛 Crashes right after starting
• 🐛 Shows "establishing communication"
• 🐛 Immediately closes app
• 🐛 Really poor graphics
• 🐛 Hate the trainer
• 🐛 Pretty useless really
• 🐛 Still reads no databases
• 🐛 Awesome app
• 🐛 Superb functionality
• 🐛 Makes learning pleasant
• 🐛 Truly emulates real deal
• 🐛 Extends usability
• 🐛 Extends functionality
• 🐛 Preparing flight plans ahead
• 🐛 Making edits
• 🐛 Frequency updates
• 🐛 Cool things natively available
• 🐛 Ditching GNS430W
• 🐛 Not regretted decision
• 🐛 Would be nice if available for Android
• 🐛 Skip tired excuse
• 🐛 Develop for Samsung
• 🐛 Stand to gain market share
• 🐛 Terrible
• 🐛 Crashes all the time
• 🐛 Difficult to use
• 🐛 A MUST have
• 🐛 For Any Avidyne IFD5xx or 4xx User
• 🐛 If that’s you
• 🐛 You simply MUST work with this app
• 🐛 And your CFII
• 🐛 Before trying anything in the airplane
• 🐛 You’ll save so much time
• 🐛 Doesn’t work
• 🐛 I can’t get it to start
• 🐛 It says “no database”
• 🐛 I down load databases
• 🐛 And try again
• 🐛 It still says “no databases”
• 🐛 Needs updating
• 🐛 There is no altitude control
• 🐛 When running app on a Mac
• 🐛 Which renders the simulator useless
• 🐛 Nice idea
• 🐛 Won’t climb
• 🐛 I have tried to get this trainer to track the autopilot
• 🐛 And fly an altitude
• 🐛 You can have it fly a heading and altitude
• 🐛 But you can’t have it track the flight plan
• 🐛 And set an altitude
• 🐛 Instructions says to set altitude to cross a waypoint
• 🐛 Tried it
• 🐛 Just flys at 20 feet
• 🐛 And tells you to pull up
• 🐛 And it still won’t track the FMS
• 🐛 Good for practicing frequency changes
• 🐛 Good fidelity to actual IFD
• 🐛 With serious usability issues
• 🐛 Avidyne apparently can’t decide
• 🐛 Whether this is a marketing app
• 🐛 Or a training device
• 🐛 When trying to use it
• 🐛 I’m constantly getting bothered by artificial traffic
• 🐛 Terrain alerts, etc.
• 🐛 When trying to figure out how to load and fly an approach
• 🐛 I really shouldn’t have to flounder around figuring out how to be at an altitude above ground
• 🐛 Or how to position the aircraft to a reasonable starting position
• 🐛 I’d call it barely usable for training
• 🐛 A disappointment
• 🐛 Where is the PC version?
• 🐛 Frustrating
• 🐛 Can’t fly lesson in Bauer’s book
• 🐛 With a standard departure
• 🐛 Even though I followed each step
• 🐛 Would have been nice to save time/money working through scenarios on ground
• 🐛 But too frustrating to bother using
• 🐛 While I like the 540 much better than my 530
• 🐛 The trainer app for my GNS was waaay better than this
• 🐛 Heading up not working on IFD 440
• 🐛 Heading up not working on map display
• 🐛 Always shows north up
• 🐛 Please fix
• 🐛 Needs documentation
• 🐛 You can play with all the controls
• 🐛 But there’s little to help how to set up common things like approaches
• 🐛 Also not obvious how to set a start point
• 🐛 Altitude, etc.
• 🐛 Speed is the only obvious setting
• 🐛 Still crashes the iPad
• 🐛 Crashed my iPad with memory issues on first run
• 🐛 Great Simulator
• 🐛 I’m flying with a friend
• 🐛 Who has Avidyne equipment
• 🐛 In his Mooney and Lake Amphibian
• 🐛 This is very helpful
• 🐛 Version10.3 IFD 540 trainer
• 🐛 Does not have CHARTS tab on MAPS page
• 🐛 In navigation mode the course slider is covered up by the iPad bar
• 🐛 And is not usable
• 🐛 Can’t control simulator altitude
• 🐛 Demo this terrain
• 🐛 No documentation for app use
• 🐛 The demo app, is stuck at Zero altitude
• 🐛 So of course it won’t work
• 🐛 Documentation is lousy
• 🐛 Familiarity equals competence
• 🐛 A great tool to practice using the Avidyne kit
• 🐛 Before you jump in an aircraft
• 🐛 Invaluable
• 🐛 Dispatch with IFD100
• 🐛 Stupid update
• 🐛 How come it does not match with the 10.2 version
• 🐛 When there is no 10.3 for the IFD100?
• 🐛 How can we trust in Avidyne
• 🐛 Hardly works
• 🐛 And only on good days
• 🐛 Gets stuck
• 🐛 Crashes
• 🐛 Inputs are difficult
• 🐛 Especially for the knobs
• 🐛 In short I hope the devices themselves are better
• 🐛 Not too great
• 🐛 There are a number of items that simply do not work
• 🐛 For example, the tutorials don’t address the IFD unit you might be trying to learn
• 🐛 The Flight Plan tutorial only addresses the IFD 540
• 🐛 When you are trying to learn the IFD 440
• 🐛 And the two are not even similar
• 🐛 Invaluable to the new owner
• 🐛 Moving from Garmin to Avidyne
• 🐛 There is no substitute for hands on practice
• 🐛 To learn the operating differences
• 🐛 This app made it so much easier
• 🐛 And it’s run well on an iPad Air
• 🐛 Includes user manuals and tutorial videos
• 🐛 IFD Trainer for 550
• 🐛 This is great!
• 🐛 I used the app while the avionics shop installed the IFD
• 🐛 And before I even picked up the plane
• 🐛 I was so familiar with its use when I picked up the plane
• 🐛 I was ready to receive my clearance in just a few minutes
• 🐛 And had all the flight plans with the SID & route to home programmed
• 🐛 Ready to go
• 🐛 A disappointment
• 🐛 Where is the PC version?
• 🐛 Freq won’t load
• 🐛 This app doesn’t work on iPad Pro
• 🐛 IFD550 training simulator
• 🐛 Have used only for a few days
• 🐛 It’s spectacular
• 🐛 It’s blowing me away
• 🐛 Will love to use the real unit
• 🐛 Good trainer app
• 🐛 I’ve got the IFD540And love it
• 🐛 This app is plenty good for getting you up to speed
• 🐛 Blows the doors off my old Garman 750
• 🐛 Avidyne was a one box solution
• 🐛 The Garmin required six other $1000 boxes to get it to work like the Avidyne
• 🐛 Top notch
• 🐛 I think Avidyne have exceeded all expectations with this trainer
• 🐛 The ability to learn while on the couch
• 🐛 And see how it actually works
• 🐛 Is confidence building
• 🐛 Thanks Avidyne
• 🐛 Freezes the iPad
• 🐛 The app frequently freezes my iPad (mini, 5th)
• 🐛 But it was free!
• 🐛 And you need something to explore what all these automatisms will do
• 🐛 Don’t take anything for granted with the IFD
• 🐛 Learning
• 🐛 This is great for practice!
• 🐛 PCC
• 🐛 Very Nice and usefull
• 🐛 Very useful to evaluate the functionality of the IFD Series FMS
• 🐛 (I used it before I bought an IFD440)
• 🐛 And today I am using it to explore functionality of my unit
• 🐛 But at home on the couch
• 🐛 You can simulate approaches and other stuff
• 🐛 And you know how the device is behaving before you get into the aircraft
• 🐛 Thanks for this opportunity
• 🐛 Junk trainers
• 🐛 I hope your real units work
• 🐛 These trainers are a joke
• 🐛 It would be nice to get familiar with the system
• 🐛 As I am in the process of installing a new Ifd 440
• 🐛 I will be looking hard for ANY bugs in the system
• 🐛 Very Disappointed
• 🐛 Ok for practicing how to load a flight plan
• 🐛 The simulator Stinks!
• 🐛 Super trainer
• 🐛 For a new customer accustomed to Garmin gear
• 🐛 This flattens the learning curve before you fly
• 🐛 Super job,Avidyne
• 🐛 Does not work on ipad2
• 🐛 Downloaded the app and filled out my information
• 🐛 App downloaded terrain but no Start or Tutorial button appeared
• 🐛 I can't run the simulator!
• 🐛 Not a good app
• 🐛 I am trying to decide between Avidyne and Garmin
• 🐛 If this app is any indication of the quality of the Avidyne software
• 🐛 I am buying a Garmin
• 🐛 If they did not have a tutorial app
• 🐛 I would buy a Garmin because they have a great app
• 🐛 The app should work like the unit in the plane
• 🐛 And this app does not work like the unit
• 🐛 Is out of date
• 🐛 And simply crashes too much to be useful
• 🐛 Frequent crashes, hard to use
• 🐛 Frequent crashes makes it useless
• 🐛 Except for some elementary functions
• 🐛 (On iPad Pro with plenty of memory, worse on iPad2)
• 🐛 Lacks adequate controls
• 🐛 Like controlling altitude in most scenarios
• 🐛 And set initial position of aircraft
• 🐛 Flight plan and settings are lost on crash/restart
• 🐛 Documentation useful to sales demo level
• 🐛 Not deep enough for actual training
• 🐛 Coupling of Jepps database extremely confusing for beginners
• 🐛 Desperately needs an simple explanation of the system architecture
• 🐛 In addition to the overly simplistic instructions
• 🐛 Also, downloading a live database apparently not shared copy with app used with real units
• 🐛 (Should just bypass the whole Jepps step by default, would be much easier for beginners.)
• 🐛 Good practice but memory-hungry app
• 🐛 The latest update requires a lot more memory than the previous version
• 🐛 Making it less stable on my admittedly old iPad 2
• 🐛 That drops it from 5 to 3 stars
• 🐛 Maps on simulator are free and require no Jepp account
• 🐛 Contrary to what others have said here
• 🐛 It's a little tricky
• 🐛 But you have to select "Demo" rather than logging in
• 🐛 I'm lucky I got some good practice in before the update
• 🐛 I feel mostly ready to get my upgraded plane back from Port City Air and fly some real approaches
• 🐛 Avidyne MFD Simulator
• 🐛 Very nice!
• 🐛 Works well
• 🐛 Great for learning how to fully utilize their amazing navigation products
• 🐛 Stick with the previous version
• 🐛 Previous version worked fine for me
• 🐛 Updated to the new version which asked for my personal details before it will open
• 🐛 Provided this information and nothing
• 🐛 So no longer able to use what was a great app to help with my IFD440 training
• 🐛 Very frustrating!
• 🐛 Problematic.....
• 🐛 Newest version asks for name and N-number
• 🐛 Then starts to load terrain
• 🐛 Once done
• 🐛 It asks for the same info again
• 🐛 Deleted and downloaded again; same problem
• 🐛 Needs some TLC prior to release!
• 🐛 Previous app better
• 🐛 This app had sooo much potential
• 🐛 But they blew it
• 🐛 It’s no longer capturing altitudes regardless if you change it in the flight plan
• 🐛 Why can’t you just say direct (enter,enter) and have it capture the flight plan
• 🐛 Then when you move the heading bug it goes back to heading mode?
• 🐛 Really, not too hard
• 🐛 Now, this awesome sim is unusable until you fix the bugs
• 🐛 Have ALL of the controls available all the time
• 🐛 With two more buttons- NAV, and Heading
• 🐛 Done
• 🐛 Great, but crashes constantly
• 🐛 Great simulator app
• 🐛 But it crashes far too frequently
• 🐛 The app needs some attention from developers to make it stable enough to use effectively
• 🐛 It would also be very nice if a user-defined origin point could be saved
• 🐛 It’s annoying to have to set the current location every time the app is started
• 🐛 Especially because the app is so brittle and crashes all the time
• 🐛 A great gps navigator deserves a more reliable simulator app to showcase the avionic’s capabilities and to provide a better learning experience
• 🐛 Worthless
• 🐛 I’ve used several simulators
• 🐛 And I am familiar with and use a variety of systems similar to the Avidyne 540
• 🐛 I purchased an airplane with the 540 already installed
• 🐛 And after giving it a try and attempting this simulator
• 🐛 I’m just going to yank it out and get a functional GPS
• 🐛 Don’t get me wrong I think the 540 has promise
• 🐛 But avidyne needs to figure out how to make it easy to learn and get started on
• 🐛 The simulator data base issue where you need to have a jeppsen account just to use the simulator
• 🐛 And the demo data base doesn’t work is just designed for frustration
• 🐛 Same problem with the actual unit
• 🐛 I really think it could be an easy to use unit
• 🐛 Provided you can get started with it
• 🐛 The folks at avidyne just have to many useless hurdles with unnecessary complications
• 🐛 I’ve already been to two avionics shops
• 🐛 And the unit just needs updates that are difficult to install
• 🐛 Require repeated calls to tech support
• 🐛 And take way to much time
• 🐛 Just like the simulator
• 🐛 Other systems are plug and play compared to these
• 🐛 And I strongly suggest looking at other systems
• 🐛 Great tool to learn the IFD
• 🐛 This worked very well for me learning the IFD
• 🐛 I now have one and really like flying it
• 🐛 I see the complaints about not having a database
• 🐛 I had a similar issue originally
• 🐛 But I called Avidyne they they talked me through it so I could use it with the demo database
• 🐛 I would like to use it as an IFD440 but can’t figure that out
• 🐛 That is the only complaint I have
• 🐛 Useless without database
• 🐛 Requires a Jeppesen account
• 🐛 I use Garmin
• 🐛 So don’t have Jeppesen
• 🐛 I wanted to install the sim to compare UI with GTN-750 to make a buying decision
• 🐛 Unfortunately, not possible
• 🐛 Garmin simulator for PCs just work by comparison
• 🐛 Fantastic app
• 🐛 Download the available databases
• 🐛 And it exactly duplicates a IFD440 or 540
• 🐛 I taught myself how to use the IFD540 while the actual GPS was being installed in my airplane with this app
• 🐛 Reading the IFD pilot guide is a must
• 🐛 But being able to actually simulate what you are reading is the next best thing to using it while in flight
• 🐛 This app allows you to do that while learning how to use the IFD
• 🐛 Works as promoted with IFD100 app
• 🐛 This app simulates the panel mounted IFD4XX/IFD5XX device
• 🐛 Use the IFD100 on a sound iPad to “remotely” program the panel device as you would in the cockpit
• 🐛 WARNING: Using a second iPad uses one of the available subscription devices
• 🐛 Works fine if you figure out how
• 🐛 Edited
• 🐛 My original comment was similar to the other negative one
• 🐛 No database
• 🐛 So you really can't do anything
• 🐛 I contacted Avidyne
• 🐛 Instead of bypassing the Jepp database logon screen by touching "Exit"
• 🐛 You need to actually log on with no username or password
• 🐛 You will come to a screen with a list of demo databases available for download into the simulator
• 🐛 Fairly useless
• 🐛 The simulator is of little value without a database
• 🐛 The instructions say to log in without a user id or password in order to use a sample database
• 🐛 However, logging in without a user id and password does not work
• 🐛 And no database is loaded