Alert: Compatibility Issue with Apple iOS 8.3 and External GPS Receivers
DO NOT UPGRADE YOUR APPLE DEVICE TO iOS 8.3 IF YOU RELY ON AN EXTERNAL GPS RECEIVER.
We are investigating reports that iOS 8.3 (released by Apple earlier this week) is not feeding GPS data from most external GPS receivers into 3rd party apps, such as ForeFlight, WingX, JeppFD, Navionics, and others. We have reproduced this issue in our lab and confirmed that this issue is not unique to Bad Elf GPS receivers, but affects other GPS receivers from Garmin and Dual Electronics as well.
Our newer GPS accessories, including the Bad Elf GPS for Lightning (BE-GPS-1008), Bad Elf GPS Pro+ (BE-GPS-2300), and Bad Elf GNSS Surveyor (BE-GPS-3300) do not seem to be negatively impacted.
We are working with Apple to resolve this issue and will provide status updates as we get more information. In the meantime, we recommend you wait to upgrade your Apple devices to iOS 8.3.
Update (Monday 13-April): We've passed all of the necessary information to Apple Support and got confirmation over the weekend that it has been passed to the correct team. We're optimistic it will be fixed in the next iOS 8.3.x release, and will post updates as we receive them.
Update (Thursday 16-April): We're still awaiting any news from Apple. In the meantime, we’re exploring several possible workarounds. We have confirmed that the beta iOS 8.4 released earlier this week has the same GPS issue. Some customers have reported successfully downgrading their iOS back to iOS 8.2, but we can’t recommend that process to our customers — it’s not supported by Apple and requires a complete wipe of your settings/apps/data. If you are a pilot grounded by this issue, please contact us via email to support@bad-elf.com and we’ll see what we can do to help. Rest assured we are doing everything in our power to get this resolved and will send another email when we have any new information.
For future updates on the iOS 8.3 situation, please view the latest information on our supplemental blog post, available here.
I’m among those who received the warning too late. This is why I have kept up my paper chart subscription. ForeFlight’s been reduced to a flight planning tool until/unless this problem is resolved or we’re forced to upgrade to a different product.
I’m among those who got the warning too late. This is why I’ve kept up my subscription to paper charts. Foreflight’s been rendered nothing more than a flight planning tool until/unless this is resolved or we’re forced to buy a compatible product.
Too late for me.
This kind of issue should be announced asap by an email warning to all registered users of BadElf.
A lot of iPad users (not me) are cautious before upgrading. It’s not too late for them…
Using Bad Elf Pro with software 2.1.6 (2174) on iPad with no internal GPS
Using Air Nav Pro in the plane, and Waze in my car. Both are useless now.
Yep, same issue with DUAL150
That’s great info, but unfortunately too late as I had already downloaded ios 8.3
As a result, I have a useless navigation tool after spending $100.00 on Dual XGPS150A and $350.00 on a mini I pad, not to mention $77.00 for the Foreflight program.
The suggestion that the internal GPS on an I pad will work is wrong. After buying my Apple mini I pad, I tried it with no external antenna and the result was no joy. Then I purchased the Dual XGPS150A and everything came to life.
I am going to be one cranky boy after having spent all this money and Apple doesn’t fix the problem. I’ll be damned to invest $800.00 more for a Stratus or any other alternative as a fix. I fly regularly and as a result need the fix NOW. Not happy at all.