Recently, while on a flight with United from Tenerife to Newark, I played with the infotainment screen in front of me. These infotainment systems really improved in recent years. Screens are bigger, speed is much faster, and interaction has improved quite a bit. Some of these systems look like iPad-in-the-seat, literally. It occurred to me that Apple while offering CarPlay, could try to find a way to create a version for flight infotainment systems. Let’s call it FlightPlay because Flighty is already used, and AirPlay, too!
I want each plane to offer a complete set of flight data, ready to be consumed by my iPad or iPhone while in flight via a local wifi network. The iPhone or the iPad would then turn into a special StandBy mode where data would be visually presented dynamically, allowing for great interactions with the user. Modern devices have so much powerful CPU, the interaction would be much more fluid and enjoyable. The data provided would be based on a standard model and would provide speed, altitude, current destination, path, atmosphere metrics (temp, headwind speed, etc.), and so much more. The airplane company could directly provide TV shows, music, etc., to our devices. The same would be for games. But Apple could also allow consumption of locally stored content from the device itself. I can imagine Apple’s designers working on a great graphical dashboard.
Is anybody at Apple reading this? What are you waiting for?
