FlightAware Flight Tracker

Check the location of global commercial flights or private and chartered flights flying over the US and Canada. With the FlightAware iOS or Google Play app, passengers, aviation companies and weather services can quickly access information on navigation charts, airport info, weather maps and a host of other handy features.

Interface

The UI on both iOS and Android app is well-designed and simple to navigate, though slightly cluttered. The options are arranged at the top of the screen with scroll options for the various tabs and pages such as the MyAircraft, MyAirports, MyAlerts and a flights map. Ads are located at the bottom of the screen. Also present are options for panning and zooming in on various maps.

The design is simple, although ads take up a lot of space on the screen.  Interface score: 6/10

Key Features

The iOS and Google Android app for flight tracking offers a variety of useful features which have transformed this app into one of the leading flight tracking services. The app lets you see terminal details (i.e., arrival and departure), flight status (i.e., destination ETA, radar overlays, delays, changes or cancellations) and even GPS location of nearby flights, including map view of these flights.

The app gives you the ability to track flights and filter results by flight number, airport code, aircraft registration, and route or city pair. You’ll also get access to maps for weather and radar overlay from NEXRAD. Last but not least, you can set the app up to receive push notifications for flight alerts.

This is an app for all Android devices (the APK runs on Android 4.2 or higher) and iOS 10.0 or higher for Apple gadgets. The latest version offers bug fixes, an updated widget for Android Oreo and a fix for the search feature to include results from all data, not just recent searches. Both the IPA and APK are free to launch, although there’s an in-app purchase for ad-removal at $2.99.

Features score: 7/10

Usability

While the app has nice features and a pleasant UI, the app has recently become too unstable after the new updates and freezes too much, especially on my Samsung tablet. The experience is slightly better on an iPhone. Scrolling used to be easy on the app, but now it is cumbersome. I’ve often experienced the app sharing past and future flight info but not current flights data. The app was great at one point but currently needs work.

User experience score: 4/10

The data on the app is constantly updated and refreshed, and this enhanced by the fact that you can access real-time data.

Bottom Line

I’d recommend the app if the developers fixed the issues and glitches. It’s a handy tool, and I wouldn’t want to delete it from my phone. The app works slightly better on iOS (iPhone, iPod touch and iPad) than on Android mobile devices, maybe due to the requirements for internal storage and RAM. The app used to be great, but it isn’t as effective anymore. However, it’s still a great planning tool for those frequent flyers.