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WiFi without internet on a Southwest flight

jamesbvaughan.com

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Re: WiFi without internet on a Southwest flight

#181

Post by catiopatio »

mynameisvlad wrote: post #174
catiopatio wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tons of apps do that. It’s a built-in, supported use-case! It’s also the trivial, obvious approach to anyone who asks the question “how can I push data to the application when it’s not running.”

Give me one example, then. Of an app which uses a notification as an actual app data source and not just as a notification which opens the app. And which also updates the primary app view to reflect this new information. No other app has updated its app state based on the content of notifications. Slack/Discord/Teams et al (the ones that aren't allowed on free messaging plans) will show you previously cached messages…

Slack/Discord/Teams? Those are desktop web applications hosted via Electron. Failing to leverage basic platform functionality is practically their telos.

It’s a trivial, documented, supported, long-standing API for a common use-case. It is widely used, as documented, for its intended purpose.

I cannot share information about specific applications.

Re: WiFi without internet on a Southwest flight

#182

Post by comprev »

pklausler wrote: post #123
jonah wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you have location permissions enabled in your camera app, the image's exif data will have the coordinates in it. (US Civilian GPS units are prohibited from working above 60,000 ft above sea level and 1,000 knots due to ITAR munitions export restrictions.)

Stupid question: how do civilian GPS units know that they're above 60,000' or faster than 1000 knots without, um, working?

Maybe they read 60,000 even when at 62,000?

Re: WiFi without internet on a Southwest flight

#183

Post by interestica »

dag11 wrote: post #18
atourgates wrote: post #4

I'm an Alaska (relatively) frequent flyer. That airline offers a free "messaging" plan, that lets you send and receive messages on apps like iMessage, Facebook Messenger and Whatsapp. Though, it somehow prevents images/attachments from coming through on those platforms. I've always wondered how this is implemented technically, and if it might be possible to setup some kind of protocol/wrapper to send data that looks…

Hi fellow Alaska frequent flier. So about that! There's this iOS app called Flightly that does a brilliant little hack where the app updates itself in (almost) real time on the "free messaging" plan. The way it works (according to a friend) is that their servers send your phone a push notification every couple of minutes from take-off until landing, containing some serialized info such as lat,long,alt,eta,etc. And th…

> There's this iOS app called Flightly

I guess it's Flighty (https://apps.apple.com/us/app/flighty-live-flight-tracker/id...)

I love that people are into this. In the days before iPhones, I had "Microsoft Streets and Trips" + a USB GPS unit + Laptop. It was fun having it on a flight and seeing movement data in realtime. It was less fun answering questions from people who thought looking at the GPS data was somehow nefarious.

Re: WiFi without internet on a Southwest flight

#185

Post by interestica »

catiopatio wrote: post #153
mynameisvlad wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're using push notifications in a novel way to provide the app the necessary information to update itself without needing to be connected to the full internet. That's quite a bit beyond "They're using push notifications" and no other app does that AFAIK. Almost all will use the push notification as a notification and trigger an update on app open which would fail.

Tons of apps do that. It’s a built-in, supported use-case! It’s also the trivial, obvious approach to anyone who asks the question “how can I push data to the application when it’s not running.”

What other apps do this?

Re: WiFi without internet on a Southwest flight

#187

Post by naikrovek »

hk1337 wrote: post #179
c7DJTLrn wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would be nice if you could send a POST request to open the door if you want some fresh air.

Someone will probably figure out how to send a request to disable auto-pilot or turn off the fasten seat belt sign.

the airline industry is nowhere nearly as stupid as the software industry with things like this.

the communication between plane and wifi/entertainment system, if there is any, is almost certainly one-way. likely, the wifi system providing this info is receiving data from the flight systems and repeating it or transforming it a bit and providing that.

it would not surprise me at all if the flight attendants have to program everything about the flight into the system prior to departure each flight, and there is no communication from the aircraft at all.

Re: WiFi without internet on a Southwest flight

#189

Post by adrr »

dag11 wrote: post #18
atourgates wrote: post #4

I'm an Alaska (relatively) frequent flyer. That airline offers a free "messaging" plan, that lets you send and receive messages on apps like iMessage, Facebook Messenger and Whatsapp. Though, it somehow prevents images/attachments from coming through on those platforms. I've always wondered how this is implemented technically, and if it might be possible to setup some kind of protocol/wrapper to send data that looks…

Hi fellow Alaska frequent flier. So about that! There's this iOS app called Flightly that does a brilliant little hack where the app updates itself in (almost) real time on the "free messaging" plan. The way it works (according to a friend) is that their servers send your phone a push notification every couple of minutes from take-off until landing, containing some serialized info such as lat,long,alt,eta,etc. And th…

Push notifications have background notifications that are used to update apps while they aren't loaded. We used them update our catalog/home screen on shopping app, its makes the app feel much more responsive when they open the app and content instantly appears instead of waiting for some API calls.

https://developer.apple.com/documentation/usernotifications/...

Re: WiFi without internet on a Southwest flight

#190

Post by jamesbvaughan »

wesapien wrote: post #188

What software did you use to do the visuals? I want to try this out.

I used chart.js [0], but I don't necessarily endorse it - it's just what I knew how to use quickly. I usually try to keep my posts free from javascript, and could have used a different tool that gives me SVG data or images.

You can see the code that's generating these charts here: https://github.com/jamesbvaughan/jamesbvaughan.com/blob/main...

[0] https://www.chartjs.org/

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