Eckernförder Verlag has rolled out a major update for the start of the season and has also given it a new logo. The list of improvements is long: AIS alarms such as CPA (Closest Point of Aproach) or anchor alarms, for example, are relevant to safety and can now be signalled visually and acoustically via Apple's new "critical notifications" feature, even if the smartphone is actually in silent mode. For example, the skipper can be warned of an impending collision via AIS or when the anchor starts to slip.
Another new feature is that the dark or night mode, which is important for night cruises, can now be operated directly in the app using the layer button. This is quicker and saves you having to change the brightness settings on the tablet or smartphone you are using, which you then forget to correct later.
AIS and anchor alarms now also on smartphones despite muting
The auto-routing feature has also been improved, making it easier to make manual changes to routes once they have been created during use. New sets of nautical charts are also available; the Inland 5 set, which also includes the Mittelland Canal and new parts of the Dutch territories, should be of particular interest to motor boaters. The old rule at NV-Verlag remains the same: if you buy the charts as a paper set, you also get free use of the app via a voucher code in the set. Of course, the sets can also be purchased digitally in the app as an annual subscription. The very nice and probably also popular feature of switching between raster and vector maps with just one click has also been retained. The former still have some advantages in terms of clarity, especially when zooming out of the map image. According to NV Managing Director Jeppe Scheidt, the amount of harbour information has also been significantly increased.
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It is also particularly pleasing that the relaunch has made the app much more stable and easier to use, especially on tablets or devices with less memory. In tests conducted by our sister magazine YACHT, the NV app was already one of the apps that required the most memory to run smoothly. On devices with only two gigabytes, the app crashed from time to time, or you couldn't use the vector version. Although four or optimally six gigabytes of RAM are still recommended after the update, the older devices now run much more stably, as we were able to see for ourselves during a test run at the weekend. If you only have two or four gigabytes of memory, the NV app now sometimes tells you that closing other apps will improve performance.
The app now runs much more stable on old devices
It was also sometimes annoying that the app had to restart if the tablet went into sleep mode when not in use. Now the app is immediately available again if you actively switch off the screen beforehand with the On/Off button on the right or close the screen protector of a cover for the iPad. A real plus for a quick glance in narrow passages.
Apart from that, there have been a large number of other design and stability improvements that are not immediately obvious, but are noticeable in detail. A list of the full scope of the updates can be found on the manufacturer's website. As always with NV, the relaunch has been rolled out for all platforms, i.e. iOS, Android, MAC OS and Windows. This means that the NV app is probably still the one that runs on most hardware platforms, which some crews appreciate.
