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.
8.2 is no longer available. http://www.redmondpie.com/ios-8.3-downgrade-no-longer-possible-as-apple-stops-signing-ios-8.2/
Is it signed? That’s a problem I have encountered trying to go back to 8.2, cant find a signed version and iTunes wont accept it…
I had the same problem with skydemon and garmin Glo and read this and many other blogs / web sites, all say it’s apples fault, and I guess it is as they changed the protocol to a newer one or so one site says….
Luckily for me upgrading my garmin Glo to firmware 2.7 fixed my issue so I’m flying on iOS 8.3 with my external Bluetooth GPS.
Downgrading to iOS 8.2 is very simple. It involves nothing shady, techy, or otherwise “scary”. I understand why companies can’t come out and recommend doing it, but there really is no reason for you (the customer) to be wary about taking responsibility for downgrading on your own. All software used is official Apple software – no jailbreaking required.
Here is a link with a simple walk through of how to do it: http://www.redmondpie.com/how-to-downgrade-ios-8.3-on-your-iphone-or-ipad/
Do be aware that iOS 8.2 might not be available to download forever. If you think you might want to do it but haven’t made up your mind just yet, you should at minimum go download iOS 8.2 (about 2 GB) to have on hand if/when you decide you’re ready to downgrade: http://www.redmondpie.com/download-ios-8.2-final-for-iphone-ipad-direct-links/
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