First time you've really mixed fruit and vegetables.

First NavX allows charts of any KAP format to be used. We bought Coastal Explorer Charts for much of the eastern Carib and they worked great. I've also purchased and Fugawi charts and imported and used those. As you mentioned many of the other companies like to make the charts they've repackaged Proprietary. This seems rather on the edge of the law as it would in my mind be similar to me taking a Disney Film and changing how it renders and saying it is mine. Be that as it may, I haven't given any monies to Furno, Garmin, Raymarine, Simrad, or Nobletec for any of their charting programs.

Don't know if I'll complain about the various government charts and the countries. On my site I try to provide feedback for other cruisers of places we've been and experiences we've had.

If our paths cross we'll have to compare the ipad and itouch apps and see what diffrerences there are. I'm suspecting some since your experience seems night and day difference then mine. I always thought you were talking about the ipad when you were discussing iNavionics. That may have been a cause for some of the confusion.

Yes, some of the companies you mention do brag and I feel it is truely bragging and not based on reality. Thus I try to provide real world feedback for the products I use. This includes communication with the companies in either or both email and voice. I'm bascially numb to much but if there is not information from others then where does that leave us? I benefited much; when outfitting our boat, from the feedback other cruisers provided about what worked and what didn't. Otherwise I'm a slave to the advertising budgets of the companies and I'm not sure any company has of late been charged with their lack of truth in advertising which my well be an oxymoron.

As for me, I've watched Fischer Panda have problems for years from the discussions on forums about the problems of their gensets. And in the last two years i've watched as they begin to finally address their lack of support issues. Obviously if one considers this and forums like it as a pissing match then they'll most likely stay away. But I had a real issue with our Autoprop when we first purchased it and mostly because of the forum I was posting info on the company finally took note and I was able to reach a resolution. In my circumstance the forum was an asset to me and the company showed that they listen. At least the European contingent.

And finally, you mixed the the fruit and vegetables. Yes you can't put gas in a diesel (at least full strength) but you can use diesel from any company, you can use the pictures from a camera and import to any computer. If you buy a computer it doesn't only work on PC's or Mac's. While the programs need to be OS specific the files they work with don't. And it is the files that any charting program uses that I am partly talking about.

Ciao