Information available in the Extended Dynamic Island Implementation of Flighty.
Jason Cipriani/ZDNet
I have recently started traveling again for work. I lost it I miss seeing people I only interact with online. I missed out on experiencing different parts of the country. I missed New York City (yes, I mean it). But one thing I haven’t missed is flying.
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To be clear, I don’t mind flying. This is right. But I don’t enjoy the process of traveling to the airport, finding out which gate my flight is at, and worrying about whether or not my flight is on time. It is a pathetic experience.
For years I’ve used TripIt as a way to organize my travel plans. And with a TripIt Pro subscription, I received timely alerts about gate changes or delays.
A few years back, I read about a new flight-tracking app called Flighty. The app promised faster alerts and more information about your flight than usual. I used the free trial soon after launch to test it out and found it to be quite good. But I couldn’t justify paying for TripIt Pro and subscribing to Flighty Pro to unlock all the push alerts and other features like TripIt Sync.
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And yet, whenever I had a flight booked, I found myself paying for a one-month subscription to Flighty Pro and using it in place of TripIt for alerts.
This is what Live Activity on the Lock Screen looks like on the Always-On Display of the iPhone 14 Pro.
Jason Cipriani/ZDNet
Once I started traveling again post COVID, I found something odd with my travel routine. I found myself trying to remember which apps I used and for what. I also had to reevaluate which gadgets went in my backpack.
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I eventually made my way back to using Flyte, still paying for a month at a time. And then last week, I took a trip to San Jose, California, where the Flighty experience finally convinced me to pay for a year’s subscription, and not just for mefor my whole family.
the reason? The iOS 16.1 update is flighty with support for Live Activities on the lock screen and all the information I want is kept on display while constantly traveling in the iPhone 14’s Dynamic Island, even when my phone is locked and sitting idle ( Always-on Display) for the win) or when I was actively using the phone thanks to Dynamic Island.
Here’s an example of an inflight experience that begins a few hours before your scheduled flight and ends after you land and collect your luggage.
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A few hours before your scheduled flight, you’ll receive an alert letting you know if the plane you’re going to fly that day is en route to the airport, as well as whether it’s on time. In fact, with a Pro subscription, you can see where your plane is up to 25 hours before your scheduled flight. This is a useful bit of data that shows whether your plane has been running late for previous flights, and sets expectations for your flight.
Shows just enough information to make it useful in Flighty Dynamic Island.
Jason Cipriani/ZDNet
As the flight approaches, an alert will appear on your lock screen and in Dynamic Island, providing a countdown to gate departure with your gate number. Once your incoming plane lands, you will get an alert. And then another alert on arrival at the gate.
At all times, the most important information about your flight is available and viewable on your lock screen.
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Once you board your flight, Flighty doesn’t stop working. The alert remains active, showing you how long it is until the plane lands, and if you actually open the app instead of just using the alert, you can see the exact flight plan your pilot filed with the FAA and you You can see the estimate of where they are. But on that way That last set of data will be even more accurate if you have in-flight Wi-Fi but does a decent job of estimating flight location and time, even in offline mode.
Various examples of information that you will see available throughout the day.
Screenshot by Jason Cipriani/ZDNet
Then, when you get off, you get an alert telling you how long it will take for the taxi to reach the gate. I’m not exaggerating with this next statement. I received an alert that my flight had landed within seconds of the wheels coming down when it landed in Denver on my last trip; Flighty’s alerts can be so fast.
You should also get baggage claim information in the second alert, but on my last two flights, that information never came up in the app.
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The entire experience is a prime example of how a developer should approach and use Live Activities and Dynamic Island on the iPhone 14 lineup. In fact, it wasn’t until Flighty added support for those features that I was finally convinced it was time to go all in and sign up for the $90-per-year Family Membership . That way, when I travel, I can share my plans with my wife and kids, and they can track my travels as closely as they want. Or, when we travel as a family, we’re all on the same pageespecially when it comes to the dreaded, “How long until we’re off?”
You don’t need to sign up for the Pro plan to use Flighty. Your first trip in the app is free, complete with all push notifications and additional data I didn’t even touch on (like what percentage of flights were late and for how long). You can even use it to track down a random flight while sitting at your desk, just to get a feel for how the app works and what you can expect when you travel.
