Pilot EFB Desk is the web edition of the same product you carry on an iPhone or iPad. This chapter is the desk's view of the phone: what the iOS app is, how the two editions share one account and one set of records, and what only the phone can do. The full iOS User Guide lives at /guide.
What the iOS app is
| Pilot EFB on iOS | Pilot EFB Desk | |
|---|---|---|
| Download | Free, from the App Store | Signed-in web app at app.pilotefb.com |
| Free tier | 300 logged hours, 20 logged duties and 3 flight folders, with weather, raw NOTAMs, calculators and the airport reference free and unlimited (the decoded NOTAM briefing is Pro) | None |
| Paid plan | Pilot EFB Pro, $39.99 a year or $4.99 a month via the App Store, no trial | Pilot EFB Desk, $199.99 a year or $19.99 a month via Stripe, 2-day trial |
| Data | Your records stay viewable, editable and exportable past a cap | Everything included while the subscription runs |
Neither subscription opens the other: subscribing on iPhone or iPad does not unlock Desk, and a Desk subscription does not give you Pilot EFB Pro or affect your App Store billing, and the Desk subscription screen says so under its plans. Plans, trial and billing has the Desk side; Free vs Pro has the iOS side.
How Cloud Sync joins the two
Both editions keep a full local copy and work offline-first; Cloud Sync is the bridge. It sends your latest changes up and brings other devices' changes down, and if the same item changed in two places the most recent edit wins. Saved weather and NOTAM briefings are copied up unchanged and never overwritten. What travels is your logbook, flights and duties - briefings included - plus, with attachment storage, the photos and PDFs attached to them. Your profile, home base, units and FTL regime sync with them, while the theme is kept apart on each edition.
- On the iPhone, open Settings > Data & storage and sign in. Backup and restore are free on iOS; Auto-sync in the background is part of Pro.
- Turn on Auto-sync in the background. The phone then syncs when you open the app or reconnect.
- On Desk, open Settings > Data & storage > Cloud Sync. The Sync status card shows Online or Offline; Sync now pushes and pulls at once, and Restore from account pulls a fresh browser up to date.
- Your devices, beside it under Data & storage, lists every device on either side that has synced to your account.
The foot of both screens carries the same line: "Cloud Sync is informational and is not a backup of record. Keep your own copies of anything you must retain." Settings and sync walks the desk side; Settings, Backup & Sync walks the phone.
What stays on the phone
Desk does not try to be a phone. These live only in the iOS app:
- Home and Lock Screen widgets, and the Live Activity
- Siri Shortcuts, Spotlight and the Share extension
- The app for Apple Watch
- Downloadable offline map packs (Desk streams its chart data)
- Photos inside an encrypted backup file (a web restore is data only; photos restore on iOS)
- On the station's METAR: the runway wind breakdown with gust and variable-sector crosswind read against your limits by name, density altitude and runway condition; on its TAF: the What changed, Your minimums and planning check reads (Weather)
Red-light mode exists on both, set separately on each. The iOS chapters Notifications & Widgets and Aviation Map cover the first four, and Weather the METAR and TAF reads.
Desk in a phone or iPad browser
Desk is built for a desk, but it opens in a phone or tablet browser too. Below about 560 px the shell switches to a phone band: the sidebar becomes a navigation drawer behind a menu button in the top bar (its close control is labelled Close navigation menu), the top bar prints the page title alone, tables reflow to fewer columns, the Station board pans sideways, and dialogs such as New duty stack to one column. An iPad gets the desktop layout at its own width. The subscription gate is the same in every browser, and it reads the same account, so a phone browser is a fair way to check something on Desk between sectors - the iOS app remains the better tool in your hand.
Troubleshooting
A duty logged on the phone is not on the desk. Check the phone is signed in to the same account and that Auto-sync in the background is on; without Pro on iOS the phone syncs only when you press Sync now there. On Desk, the Overview strip's SYNCED cell shows how many changes are pending.
Desk asks me to subscribe although I pay for Pro on my iPhone. The two subscriptions are separate by design; see Plans, trial and billing.
My photos did not come across to the desk. Photos attached to entries travel through attachment storage, not through an encrypted backup file. A backup file restored on the web brings the data only; restore it on iOS for the photos.
Where next
- Plans, trial and billing - the Desk subscription beside the iOS plan.
- Settings and sync - Cloud Sync, devices and storage on the desk.
- Overview - the since-last-look desk that shows what synced while you were away.
- The iOS User Guide - every phone chapter, from Quick start to Free vs Pro.