Orca: Boat GPS, Charts, Routes

Took me forever to create an account. Apple sign in didn’t work. For some silly reason I spent time to it figure out (despite worthless error messages, a confused fire base backend, and an unhelpful AI that asked for my phone number). I guess I was motivated by “free”. Well, it ended up being a waste of time as this app doesn’t work as a basic chart plotter. Good luck pulling up details of a bouy. If the app doesn’t feel like rendering text alongside it at the zoom level you’re at, well I guess you’re not going to get any more info. The “at this location” screen is perversely too sparse on data “starboard lateral mark” AND too verbose as overlapping restricted areas take all available screen real estate and you can’t even scroll to the last ones. As far as data goes, this is purely coastal. Inland rivers in the US have occasional bridge heights listed, nothing else. Complete waste of my time and not worth any space on my phone (even though free). Maybe in a couple years if real mariners start using it.

The app is not designed to be used easily for navigation. It’s impossible to enter an actual start point based on desire or current location, and impossible to enter way points that are desired. There are no features present such as type of data that could be obtained, wind, current, weather, predicted, estimated, speed or actual? Perhaps there is a way to unlock “dumb demo” mode? There are no menu options, nothing, seems like a troll?