Does anyone have an experience with the Air Manager App for iPad and MS2020? It really looks good on the App Store. Interesting Question: Why would it cost 65 Euros on the makers website and $23 on the App Store? Any opinions welcome! Thanks a lot…
The full version has more features than the app version which is why there is a price difference.
I’m very interested in doing the same with my iPad and the (very helpful) answer I got in some other thread was that the app will only support panels found in AM’s community store and nothing else. No custom panels made by others (but not in the store), no additional customization.
So I’m thinking of grabbing the full version, setting up my panels and then sending them to iPad via Spacedesk app (which is limited to 30fps but otherwise works fine, as I’ve already done some tests with it).
The price is indeed steep but I think it opens so many additional possibilities that it’ll be worth it in the end. I think it mostly depends on how many different panels one would like to use via Air Manager. Personally I’m interesting only in MCDU or perhaps G1000 and its 12 soft keys, as I’m already simulating everything else via physical knobs and buttons using other hardware.
Problem is there aren’t really any custom panels made by others that are available, seems like everyone just make them for themselves and don’t share, or if you do find some they only work with x-plane or are outdated and no longer work. Unless you know of some I am not aware of?
There is a group called simstrumentation that make allot of instruments and panels that are freely available via their GitHub.
They also have a discord.
Yeah but those are just instruments. They had a nice looking Arrow panel in one of the pictures, but the guy who made it won’t share it, so all that is actually available is a fuel selector lever.
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I agree that the price is steep! The program does a lot, but do I need that much? I have just learned about the instrument “pop up” in MS2020, so I am playing with that on an old monitor. But the instruments that will “pop up” are limited…So, back just about where I started. I will probably buy the expensive version eventually. If I do, does that version include the capability of transferring to the iPad or will I need to purchase the App also? And so it goes…
If you guys think it’s expensive name me another single piece of software that can do all that Air Manager can for a better price. For what it does it’s actually a bargain.
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Why should anyone have to share stuff they have worked hard to develop. Perhaps all the aircraft and scenery devs should give their stuff away too based on that logic. There is always this expectation that because someone has made something they are happy to just be free labour for others not willing to contribute at all. Sharing implies everyone does so equally but the sad fact is they do not or in some cases cannot. Those that choose to give to the community have their reasons for doing so and are to be commended but it’s wrong to expect it.
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I don’t normally recommend anyone get the tablet versions of AM over the desktop version but they have their uses and so it really depends on your now and future use cases.
AM desktop has the full functionality. Display any instruments etc (store or personal), create/edit instruments etc, flash hardware, manage Air player devices.
AM for iOS allows you to display instrument(s) currently bundled with the App. The instrument collection will generally be what was in the community store around the time the App was last updated.
AM for Android is similar to the iOS version but has the benefit that you can download any instrument that is available in the community store rather than wait for an App update to get newer ones.
Like I said it really depends on what you want from it that will decide the best version for you.
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I think the question of pricing really depends on the needs of each person and also on competition.
I’ll take spad.next as an example, which is also pricey at around 90 euros or so (plus 50 more for lifetime updates). Someone who enjoys MSFS (or any other sim) with a keyboard and mouse, won’t have much use of it. Someone who’s building a cockpit with lots of peripherals, switches, knobs, encoders and whatnot, will happily pay that money because the app offers a ton of additional possibilities. Judging by myself, without even having a huge cockpit like the ones we’re seeing in youtube, spad is still the best value for money app I’ve ever bought in a sim and I don’t know what I’d have done without it.
I think the same principles apply for Air Manager. Even if I only want it to run a customized MCDU or a G1000 on a tablet, it’s still a bargain because it offers something that significantly increases immersion without having to spend $500-1000 or more on dedicated hardware (assuming you already own the extra touchscreens).
Yes of course. Only an individual can decide if what they are buying represents good value to them but you can’t say something is expensive if you only want a small part of its functionality even though it does loads more. Besides the value any individual gets out of something, the only other comparison for value for money has to be against any similar products. In this regard I think AM shines.
That’s the way to do it. As much as I like Air Manager, I don’t think the tablet versions are really worth it unless you know the instruments you plan to use are in the AM Community Store. It’s much better to just get the desktop version and use Spacedesk or some other tool to display your panel on your tablet.
For what it does, Air Manager is actually an incredible bargain and offers unique functionality not found with any other sim addon software.
I explained to you previously it wasn’t our panel, but one shared with me by someone else and I was asked to NOT share it with anyone.
The part of the GitHub page where that photo was listed was clearly labelled as being examples of things you could do with Air Manager, and not a list of what we had available for download. I’ve since removed that Arrow photo based on the fact that you misinterpreted that as meaning it was available for download and I didn’t want to create more confusion for other folks. I should have known better. People look at pictures and can’t be ■■■■■ to read.
You’re correct - the only Arrow control we have available for download is the fuel selector lever. It’s the only Arrow instrument I built from scratch and have the right to distribute. I gave my word to the creator of that Arrow panel that I wouldn’t share his work. He didn’t care if people saw it. He just didn’t want his work getting out there. My word to that person trumps the sense of entitlement anyone else may have to get someone else’s work for free.
On a side note, most of the instruments in that Arrow panel are free instruments already available in the AM store. Only a few of the specific controls and background graphics were custom work. There’s absolutely nothing preventing anyone from building their own background image (screenshot from the sim) and inserting free instruments into it to build their own panel.
Otherwise, anything Simstrumentation has ever made has been made freely available to the community with no strings attached. And there’s quite a collection of stuff that’s growing all the time. We have hundreds of hours of work into what we’ve done. And we ask for nothing in exchange. We share our work with the community at large to help enrich the still rather barren (compared to XP) Air Manager-MSFS landscape and make simming more enjoyable for all.
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You’re correct. Most people don’t share full panel layouts. The problem with making full panels is that not everyone has the same monitors. A busy panel built for a 24" monitor will be unusable on the more common 15.6" monitors or tablets, as everything will be too small to read or touch accurately. And likewise, panels designed for a 15.6" monitor will look huge and disproportionate on a large monitor and be a waste of screen real estate. Some folks are using laptops with 15.6" 4K touchscreens (with Spacedesk). Again, a panel built for a 15.6" 1080p monitor won’t work with that.
Outside of the most basic layouts, there’s really no workable way to make panels that will work universally on any size monitor. And not everyone has the same monitor layouts. I would gladly share my layouts, but unless you have the same monitor layout (2 x 15.6", 1 iPad, 1 Android) with screens of the same resolution, they simply don’t work right. This isn’t a function of people not wanting to share their work. It’s a matter of it just not being feasible to do so.
Making your own panels is stupid easy when you have the instruments. It’s a matter of dropping in instruments from the list of them available, and then placing and resizing them as necessary. It takes a bit of time and effort initially to get things working, but quite worth it in the end. That’s one of the strengths of Air Manager. It lets you quickly and easily build your own layouts to fit the space you have available.
If you’re running the Dev version of FBW’s A320 then you have access to a working MCDU to pop out to your touch tablet via Space Desk. It can be popped out via the in cockpit Flypad and it is 100% functional. Or at least it was a few weeks ago when I tried it.
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Someone’s also used that same technique and designed a CJ4 MCDU that runs independently on a tablet. I saw some folks taking about it on the Working Title forum a couple of days back.
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Thanks, haven’t tried it yet so I had no idea how it works. I mainly care about WT CJ4 but it’s good to know that the same principles can be applied to A320 and hopefully to CRJ.
They don’t sell it either, they just show it off with no intentions of ever releasing it. If you think that’s cool, okay.
I wasn’t referring to only that Arrow panel when I said most don’t share, and yeah I noticed you got rid of that picture. I only mentioned it because someone recommended your github as if there were full panels there and I simply corrected that assumption.
I make my own panels too from the default gauges since it’s just a matter of rearranging, but I’ve seen some nice panels out there with custom gauges and backgrounds that looked really nice that either don’t work anymore or just never got released. It’s just a shame is all, but oh well, what can ya do.
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