iPad in a boat

[Marque]

My college fishing team kept one as a backup on the boat. Had it on a ram mount above the helm. I would use it when I was looking for structure on the sonar and wanted to keep an eye on my position. We used the Navionics app for iPad when navigating. Mainly just used it to bluetooth music and movies over the stereo. I didn't trust it at first so I compared it to the chartplotter and it was basically identical. Worked 100 miles offshore as well as it did when it had cell reception. But unless somethings changed, only cellular capable iPads are outfitted with a GPS receiver. The one I have is wifi only so its useless for mobile navigation. I do use the Navionics app on my iPhone quite a bit. I don't know about using google earth for navigation on the water. It's a great reference tool but I would be hesitant to use it for real time navigation. If I were running someplace unfamiliar or at night last thing I would want to rely on is a satellite image thats 4 or 5 years old. There are numerous apps out there designed specifically for marine navigation and are updated regularly. Also, I would think it would be a pain to operate if it wasn't securely mounted in a convent location and wouldn't last too long in a boat if it wasn't in pretty heavy duty case.