Tom, There's a lot of emotion around this topic, and it could easily become a "best anchor" or "best filter" discussion. Garmin Bluechart Mobile is a good product, does what it does quite well, has achieved some popularity in some circles, and is somewhat easy to use. It is a basic solution, and has several limitations compared to its competition. How limiting that is depends in large measure on how sophisticated the user of the software is. BCM does display ActiveCaptain markers, and I do like its weather display overlay. But that's it. It's extremely cumbersome to use with routes, and so far as I know, it does not do mariner's notes at all. It loads routes from "compatible" Garmin chart plotters, so if you have a way to get a route into a Garmin chart plotter, you can load it into BCM. But getting a .gpx route into a Garmin Chart Plotter is a struggle in its own right. BCM uses Garmin proprietary charts, which are only updated at 6 month intervals. And, the update packages are fee, not free. The last two times Apple updated iOS, the update blew BCM running with external bluetooth GPS devices out-of-the-water. Garmin is VERY SLOW to fix those problems, and does a lousy job of anticipating them in the first place. Navionics is a much better and more comprehensive package, but it does not support Raster Charts. So, if you cruise in areas that do not have vector charts, you will not have charts for that area (the NY State Canal System is all raster charts, for example). Again, the charts are proprietary and fee, not free. It does support ActiveCaptain marker data, and it does support route import. My personal favorite iPad nav app is SEAiq USA or SEAiq International. The business model is different. The SEAiq base program carries a low cost one-time-charge, and the charts in the US are free NOAA and COE ENC/IENCs. So, ownership is a single one-time-charge and chart updates are free. SEAiq supports both raster and vector ENCs. Charts from other country's Hydro Services are supported and available electronically through www.chartworld.com <http://www.chartworld.com/> and several other sources. It fully supports ActiveCaptain. It also supports receipt of NMEA0183.2000 data via wifi, so that with a multiplexor, you can receive the full suite of nav data from your conventional nav instruments all over the boat, which makes the iPad a completely portable, full-function, wireless nav station. SEAiq supports route import from .gpx industry standard HTML files, so if you create routes in another program, like Coastal Explorer, and save them in .gpx format, you can import them directly into SEAiq via iTunes file sharing. SEAiq was originally designed to run on iOS, but there are versions that have been retrofit to run on Mac OSX, Windoz and Linux. Frankly, I'm looking at SEAiq on the Mac as a replacement for Coastal Explorer, because both are industrial grade products, but Coastal Explorer ties me to Windoz, and SEAiq frees me from Windoz. The look-and-feel of SEAiq between the iPad and the Mac is the same, so featires and controls are in the same place and work the same way. Completely consistent across all operating system platforms (except Android, as fas as I know). I have a product description of SEAiq on my website, here: https://gilwellbear.wordpress.com/category/boat-technical-topics/equipment-topics/seaiq-nav-app-on-ipad/ <https://gilwellbear.wordpress.com/category/boat-technical-topics/equipment-topics/seaiq-nav-app-on-ipad/>. Polar Navy MX is a very good product. It also uses free NOAA raster and vector ENCs and COE IENCs. It has some external nav data capability, but I have not played with it because I find SEAiq exceeds my requirements and expectations. So in summary, the business models of the software developers/manufacturers are all different. I prefer a one-time-charge to repeating charges, and I prefer free charts to proprietary charts. I don't dislike BCM, but I find it's functionality and ease-of-use rather limited. Since I started using SEAiq, I haven't used BCM at all. Hope this is useful. Jim Peg and Jim Healy aboard Sanctuary, currently at Rock Creek, Pasadena, MD http://gilwellbear.wordpress.com <http://gilwellbear.wordpress.com/> Monk 36 Hull #132 MMSI #367042570 AGLCA #3767 MTOA #3436