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 then the app immediately swallows the notification and deserializes its content without you ever seeing it. The notification works because in order for Alaska to give you notifications at all for your messaging apps, it needs to give you access to _all_ push notifications as they all get sent over an encrypted connected through Apple's server and it can't pick and choose which apps' notifications it lets through.
I've often wondered if it'd be possible to pipe any sort of internet over notifications but I'm not sure if e.g. inline responses are viable, and also that'd probably be heavy enough usage of push notifications I'm sure it's violate someone's TOS.
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.
Ha! I've used a high-end GPS to see my location and other fun facts in flight. I learned to keep it in my pocket as despite my attempts to explain it was only a receiver, I was told by the flight attendant to "PUT IT AWAY." Not being one to push back as to be removed for that flight, I did just that.
Streets and Trips was fun on a laptop for long car drives as you could live reroute in the car much like any old app can do these days but seemed somehow magical back then.
FAs can be really strange about that kind of stuff, not just out of ignorance.
My kid liked to suction cup his GoPro to the window to take a time lapse movie of the flight and one FA told him he had to take it off the window because he was, and I quote: "modifying the structure of the aircraft and that's not FAA-approved".
There has been a lot of debate in the aviation maintenance community regarding the legality of attaching gopros etc. to aircraft with suction cups. Someone eventually wrote to the FAA chief counsel and asked.
"Another consideration, in the case of this type of equipment, is the applicability of the term "alteration". FAA Order 8110.3 7E, defines an alteration as "a modification of an aircraft from one sound state to another sound state". The use of suction cups, or other temporary methods of attachment (not including permanent mechanical attachments to the aircraft), would not be considered a modification to the aircraft."
That memo is about attaching it externally. Attaching it to an internal window is probably a non-issue.
I once had a security agent ask me to prove a GoPro was a camera because they didn't understand how there could be no screen or viewfinder. It was most frustrating because this was an area where they would have encountered it many times (lots of scuba divers).
I would guess that the flight attendant is doing their job. They do not have the authority or expertise to risk the airplane based on their own analysis, or based on some random passenger's explanation. The clearly correct solution is to remove the device and then there is no risk to the plane. I expect they are strictly required to respond that way and have no leeway.
Had this happen to me with some duct tape and a malfunctioning strobing light next to me on a red-eye. I'm an aircraft builder but she didn't want to hear my explanation about how TSOs and the FARs work. I just waited until they stopped paying attention.
Way before cellphones, I'd bring my 2m radio on the plane and make contacts on simplex. That was fun to throw your callsign out and say "aeronautical mobile".
I still sneak in an HT to listen to VHF/UHF ham radio and airband. One flight, we were experiencing moderate turbulence and didn't get our drinks/snacks. The captain announced "we're asking for clearance to help us get to a smoother altitude..." meanwhile did nothing of the sort on the actual radio. Lol.
This reminds me of the old tools that tunnel more or less whatever over DNS. I.e. behind the scenes, the tool would look up "base64encodedpacket.domainyoucontrol.example.com", and it would respond with encoded data going the other way. This is because captive portal WiFi often permitted DNS to pass through unimpeded, for various reasons.
I always appreciated the hack, even though I could never bring myself to use it due to the obvious cache pollution problem on the various DNS servers.
I’ve always wondered why I get slack and email notifications when I’m on a Southwest flight with free messaging without paying for wifi. You’ve finally solved my mystery!
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.
I had an idea to use Facebook messanger as a proxy. Specifically to use the cheap messaging plan on a cruise ship for real internet access. My home computer would be a gateway that monitors fb and fetches/returns websites. I never even tried because it just sounds like a violation of multiple ToSes. Not to mention message size limitations, throttling, my fb messages being pages of encoded text, etc.
I feel like it would need to work like Opera mini to maybe be usable. Even then interactions would be uncomfortably slow.
This reminds me of a web browser years ago that would use MMS to transfer web pages to the user without using internet service. This was in the early days. I think it was a Java app for the Motorola razor IIRC
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 then the app immediately swallows the notification and deserializes its content without you ever seeing it. The notification works because in order for Alaska to give you notifications at all for your messaging apps, it needs to give you access to _all_ push notifications as they all get sent over an encrypted connected through Apple's server and it can't pick and choose which apps' notifications it lets through.
I've often wondered if it'd be possible to pipe any sort of internet over notifications but I'm not sure if e.g. inline responses are viable, and also that'd probably be heavy enough usage of push notifications I'm sure it's violate someone's TOS.