Timeline for Why are there full-fledged entertainment systems on aircraft when today everyone has a smart phone?
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
5 events
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| Jan 19, 2016 at 14:51 | comment | added | DrZ214 | @reirab I might be recalling dated information, possibly even having to do with an IFE that used CRTs every 6 rows or something like that. But who knows, maybe 10 years ago flat screens were 4x as heavy as today? These days (2016) flat screens can be much lighter. But as a few commenters have pointed it, we still have IFEs from planes 5, 10, even 15 or 20 years ago flying around today. | |
| Jan 19, 2016 at 8:44 | comment | added | PlasmaHH | @DrZ214: It might be different around where you live, but the people that are around me are only watching full videos on their smartphones if there is no other choice and they are bored by other stuff. The occasional cat video, yes, but not full movies. They prefer larger screens that they don't have to squeeze their eyes to see anything (yes, a lot of those people that I know don't have perfect eyes). Also I never looked/asked for that but I doubt that many people will want to hold their phone for many many hours. | |
| Jan 19, 2016 at 5:27 | comment | added | reirab | @DrZ214 " IIRC most weigh 3000 lb or more" That sounds extremely unlikely to me (as one who designs embedded systems not dissimilar to IFEs professionally,) at least for narrow-body aircraft. That doesn't even sound probable on a 400 passenger aircraft (unless it's one of the ones that had HDTVs and such in luxury First.) For a 150 pax aircraft, that would be 20 lb/pax. I'd guess most of the systems I've seen don't weigh more than 2 lb/pax. | |
| Jan 19, 2016 at 1:53 | comment | added | DrZ214 | I cant agree with everything you said. Yes, IFE screen is larger, and yes, you would have to hold your phone. Is this really that big a deal? Most users are used to watching youtube on their phone. The #1 selling point for flights is not what entertainment they offer, but ticket cost. We have not even gotten into extra fuel costs of the IFE, but IIRC most weigh 3000 lb or more. Finally consider that many IFE content are not even complimentary. The passenger has to pay if he wants it. So most don't, and so the idea of this 3,000 lb IFE flying around on every flight gets real dumb real fast. | |
| Jan 19, 2016 at 0:20 | history | answered | Greg Hewgill | CC BY-SA 3.0 |