XCSoar vs SyncDash

Disclaimer: Do not rely on this app for navigation or flight-critical decisions. XCSoar is an open-source flight navigation software designed for gliders and other sailplanes. It provides features like a moving map, task planning, airspace information, and thermal detection. The software helps pilots with route optimization and offers real-time data on altitude, speed, and location. It can be used on various devices, including tablets and smartphones, making it versatile for both recreational and competitive flying.

Ride the route you planned. You spent an evening at your desk drawing a canyon loop in your favorite web-based route planner — such as REVER, Scenic or Furkot — and exported it as a GPX. Then every navigation app asks you for a destination and picks its own way there — usually the fast way, on exactly the roads you were trying to avoid. SyncDash imports your GPX and follows the line you drew. FOLLOW YOUR OWN ROUTE Import a GPX from any planner. SyncDash reads the via points you chose while planning and builds turn-by-turn guidance along your intended route, using Apple's own street names and distances. Announcements come at a mile, a quarter mile, and at the turn. Ride off the route and guidance goes quiet rather than reading you a stale instruction — one tap puts you back on it. WHEN THE ROAD ISN'T ON THE MAP Dirt, forest road, BDR track. If a road can't be routed, SyncDash draws your planned line and gives no turn guidance at all, rather than inventing turns from the shape of the track. It never claims to know more than it does. VOICE NOTES THAT KNOW WHERE THEY WERE Push record and talk. Every take is stamped with the exact wall clock and the GPS fix at that moment, so the thought you had at mile 40 stays attached to mile 40. Drop a marker with the Action Button or by asking Siri, without taking a hand off the bar. WORKS WITH YOUR HELMET Any Bluetooth headset, or the phone's own microphone. The app shows which one it is actually recording from, and warns you when that's the wrong one — before you lose an hour of narration to wind noise. YOUR ACTION CAMERA, ON CUE Register a GoPro or Insta360 once and SyncDash starts and stops it with your ride over Bluetooth, shows its battery and storage, and records exactly when each clip began — as the camera confirms it. CARPLAY A moving map on the head unit showing your route, your track and your position, with controls sized for gloves: start a ride, record, drop a marker, and rejoin the route when you've left it. AFTER THE RIDE Replay the ride with your own voice playing over the moving map. Distance, climb, top speed, and speed and elevation charts. Photos and videos you shot along the way are matched to the ride by time and place, straight from your library — nothing is copied. YOUR DATA STAYS ON YOUR PHONE No account, no sign-in, no server. A ride leaves your phone only when you share it, or when you set up backup to a cloud folder you choose — as a standard GPX anyone can open, or as a single-file Ride package. Heart rate never goes into an automatic backup. HEART RATE FROM YOUR APPLE WATCH Wear an Apple Watch and your heart rate appears on the ride afterwards, charted beside your speed and climb, straight from Apple Health. With the unlock, starting a ride also starts a workout on the Watch, so heart rate is read every few seconds and the ride is saved to Fitness — and MARK and End Ride are on your wrist. FREE TO RIDE Everything about riding is free and unlimited: import your route, follow it, use CarPlay, record a ride of any length, narrate it, replay it, and share the track as a plain GPX with anyone. A one-time purchase adds sharing your voice notes, sharing a whole ride as a single-file Ride package, automatic backup of finished rides to your own cloud folder, and a workout on your Apple Watch with every ride. No subscription.