The time when pilots start packing for Africa and Australia is the time when Naviter is analysing what we have done right, what we could have done better and what is it that we want to focus on in the near future.
2013 has been another year with several milestones for Naviter:
SeeYou has received siblings which run on Android and iOS. Similarly SeeYou Recorder has received lots of updates based on customer feedback and proposals. It is a fun free addition to the product line – perfect for the beginner and intermediate pilots flying their first cross country flights. The growing acceptance of SeeYou apps is starting to change the behaviour of pilots already. Cooperation with OLC, XContest, XC Globe and others has introduced the possibility to publish your flight literally minutes after landing and showing off your flight on your smartphone begins as soon as your friends arrive. More than 20.000 installs of the SeeYou apps on Android, iPhone and iPad devices alone is reassuring that the development has been well worth the efforts and that this is the right path to follow in the future as well.
SeeYou Cloud is the hidden element behind all of our apps. It links the Naviter apps into one ecosystem where it is easy to access your flights, waypoints, airspace files and other aviation data on all available platforms. It also serves as a simple, private and secure backup. Have you ever lost a hard drive? SeeYou Cloud data runs on a hot-swappable RAID 5 configuration and is being daily backed up off-site as well. You will not loose a second of your flight data if you store them in SeeYou Cloud. Over 6.000 pilots are using SeeYou Cloud already and we are proud to have such a large base to start from as we open up the SeeYou Cloud also to third party developers world wide through simple to use and modern APIs.
Oudie 3 for Paragliding is the next major milestone for Naviter which has been reached in 2013. While SeeYou is very well known and widely used in Hang gliding and Paragliding community SeeYou Mobile never really soared with paragliders or hang gliders. Those who have tried liked it but using PDAs in paragliding cockpits is simply a no-go due to the complexity of using external batteries, cables and flimsy connectors. We were therefore approached by a very enthusiastic and young group of paraglider pilots who almost twisted our arms to start working on a paragliding-specific project. After lots of test flying and discussing how the features should work Oudie 3 has been created – the “All in one, turn it on and fly” solution. We are proud to report that it was accepted as enthusiastically within the free flying community as Oudie 2 amongst sailplane pilots. Much of the development at Naviter is now focused on the free flight market where the challenges of software and haradware development are very different compared to gliding.
But there are amazing similarities as well…
Oudie IGC has been announced recently. It is a spin-off project from the idea behind Oudie 3 except this time it’s for glider pilots agian. We were recently criticised for it. A loyal customer from the very beginning of SeeYou forwarded an email we wrote to him last spring saying that there will never be an Oudie with IGC approval. He claimed we were inconsistent in our answers! We’re not sure if it was friendly fun or honest complaint but we have to admit – 1.5 years ago we didn’t even dream about submitting Oudie for IGC approval at any time. It is fruitful cooperation with LXNAV which is making all of this possible for which we are very grateful.
Conclusion
We literally launched SeeYou from garage (and Slovenian railways to be quite precise) in the year 2000. However what we have achieved in 2013 was created by a talented team of 6 working together full time and an amazing Team of translators, dealers, airspace updaters, supporters, advisors, constructive critics and fans. This is what really makes up the core of Naviter. We are simply stunned with all of the positive feedback we are receiving and would like to reassure you that we will keep our hearts and minds open in 2014 just like we did so far.
Text too long? Here are some numbers to summarize 2013 for Naviter:
. 6 people working full time (one added this year)
. 14 products (3 added this year and 1 more announced)
. 81 new versions released
. >6000 active users of SeeYou Cloud
. >20.000 downloads on Android, iPhone and iPads alone (not counting SeeYou for PC!)
. >10.000.000 page views at Soaring Spot
Time to start packing the prototypes and beta versions which need testing in Namibia! Stay tuned on the Naviter frequency in 2014 and beyond!
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