I love APM Planner for Mac! Thank you!!!
I would like to propose that the name be changed to something more distinctive so that people will no longer get confused!
I find that the name overlaps, between with APM, APM 2.6, Mission Planner and APM Planner 2.X, make it difficult to search the forums for posts related to APM Planner specifically.
My 2C
And your suggestion would be? I think finding a name that has an inherent link in the title and searchable is quite hard.
I would like to hear to community suggestions on this.
I would suggest “APMGCS” - with no spaces, so it should be unique and search easily, and it incorporates the more generic term “Ground Control Station”. So the current version would be APMGCS 2.0.
If this is a good time to step away from the word “Mega” which I associate with the Arduino versions of the autopilot, we could drop the “M” and just go with APGCS. Does the “M” still stand for “Mega” or has it been re-purposed? In two or three more years the “Ardu” and the “Mega” might sound pretty out of date. Eventually, APGCS could stand just stand for Auto Pilot Ground Control Station.
I have to agree (not with the suggestions). I’ve been on this build for 2 weeks 20 hours a day and literally just now realized why I’ve been so confused with this entire platform … as a whole. The biggest issue (personally) is that I am using a Pixhawk from 3drobotics.com with the 3dr radios and gps/compass and I keep coming across “APM” tutorials that have nothing to do with the APM software I’m using (Mac 10.9.2) but apparently the predecessor to Pixhawk which is referred to (officially) as “APM” as well?
I am a marketing director so I completely understand your concerns about brand equity and in particular degradation but in large part there needs to be concern for brand recognition as well. I’m not sure I’ve seen this much “bleed” (overlap and confusion) with regards to so many different platforms? Particularly with such a strong product as this is.
I would at minimum drop the acronym until a long term solution is considered. Rather than calling it “APM Planner” I would use (honestly I have no idea what that actually stands for -guessing-) “ArduPilot Mission Planner” or whatever the actual is. The gratuitous use of acronyms (should never be used in any official branding elements) for all of these products is the actual offender, not the name itself.
With that being said, as I am learning more and more and flying more and more … nice work! And frankly, thank you for your hard work! The accomplishment here is not to be underestimated. But I suspect that’ll be much more clear 5 years from now once the circus in Washington gets their act together.
Well, as we have this APM:xxx convention for the firmware, why not “APM:CS” (without G, because the G implies that it only controls aircraft but it does also control rovers) or “APM:Control”?