Notifications & Widgets

Pilot EFB is quiet by default: nothing notifies you until you switch it on. The bell in the top-right of every header opens the Notifications feed, and every switch lives in Settings > Notifications. Outside the app, the Pilot EFB widget, the duty Live Activity and the Apple Watch app show glance information. The Live Activity and the Watch's weather pages carry "Reference only - verify officially." on the face, and "Personal planning only." sits under the Watch's duty figures. The widget says "Reference only." in the widget gallery and names the source and fetch time on every weather tile.

Find your way around

The feed behind the bell has one row of filter chips:

Each chip carries its own unread count. The header holds the unread total, Mark all read, and the overflow menu. Housekeeping notices, such as offline map downloads finishing or iOS removing a pack, appear here too: each is a pointer into the screen where you can act.

How to turn on alerts

1. Open Settings > Notifications.
2. Read the permission card at the top. If it is off, tap the button to open iOS Settings and allow notifications.
3. Tap Send a test alert to confirm a notification reaches your lock screen.
4. Under Location alerts, turn on NOTAM alerts and Weather alerts. They watch your home base, Brief stations, favourites and alert-only watches. The severity level, keyword highlights and personal minimums are set in the NOTAMs and Weather modules.
5. Under Reminders, switch on the ones you want. Each row says when it fires and, once on, shows a "Next:" line with the next scheduled time.

The reminders and when they fire:

How to set quiet hours

1. On Settings > Notifications, scroll to the Quiet hours card.
2. Turn on Defer non-urgent reminders.
3. Set the start and end times (22:00 to 07:00 by default).

Currency and pinned-NOTAM reminders wait until the window ends. The screen states one exception: "Crew rest fires even during quiet hours - it marks your earliest report time after minimum rest."

How to work the alerts feed

1. Tap the bell on any header. The badge shows the unread count.
2. Tap a filter chip (WX, NOTAMs, Duty, Ops) to narrow the list.
3. Tap the open button on a row to go to what it is about: a NOTAM alert opens that station's NOTAMs, a currency alert opens the rule, a duty reminder opens the Duty tab.
4. Swipe a row to mark it read or unread, or to delete it.
5. Tap Mark all read to clear the badge. An Undo bar appears in case.
6. From the overflow menu, clear read alerts older than today.

Everything in the feed is kept on your device.

How to add and edit the widget

1. Touch and hold your home screen or lock screen and add the Pilot EFB widget. It comes in small, medium and large for the home screen, plus a rectangle for the lock screen. On iOS 16 the widget is small, medium and lock screen only.
2. Touch and hold the placed widget and tap Edit Widget (iOS 17 or later).
3. Pick which airport it follows. Home base is the default and follows whatever home base you set in the app; the list also offers the airports on your current or next duty and your saved airports, and the search finds any airport.
4. Pick what each row shows: a duty (FDP) countdown, METAR, TAF, runway wind, sunrise and sunset, a Zulu clock, your most urgent currency item, your next flight, or Automatic, which shows the duty countdown while you are on duty and a Zulu clock otherwise. The medium and large sizes also offer METAR + TAF together, and Nothing to leave a row empty.

Every copy you place is its own instance with its own airport and rows. A slot with nothing to show says "Nothing selected" rather than sitting blank, and every tile pins its source line outside the text that shrinks to fit. On iOS 17 or later, tap a tile to open the app where it points: an airport tile opens that station's METAR, a duty or next-flight tile the Duty tab.

How widgets stay fresh

The widget fetches its own METAR and runway wind; every other row shows what the app last wrote. Four things keep a tile current:

1. The widget's own fetch. Each placed widget asks for fresh reports on iOS's widget schedule - roughly every 15 to 60 minutes for a widget you look at, less often for one you rarely see. It follows your Network & data settings: manual-only stops it, and Wi-Fi-only and the roaming guard stop it on mobile data. Settings > Widgets & Live Activity shows the last widget fetch under Refresh while the app is closed.
2. Opening the app. This is the guaranteed refresh. On launch and on every return to the foreground, the app re-asks for the METAR and TAF of every airport a placed widget follows, within its normal cache rules and your Network & data guards. TAF, sunrise and duty rows update this way.
3. Background refresh while the app is closed. The app also registers an iOS background task that refreshes every row. A second card in the same Settings section says whether iOS is granting it ("Background App Refresh is off for Pilot EFB" comes with the cure, iOS Settings > General > Background App Refresh, and Low Power Mode pauses it) and what the last run did, with its Zulu time. iOS decides when, usually with the phone idle or charging, often not for days.
4. Ageing in the tile. Whatever happens, the widget grades the observation's age live, so a report that was never renewed reads stale, never fresh.

How to choose what may leave the app

1. Open Settings > Widgets & Live Activity.
2. Under Show on widgets, switch each surface on or off: Active duty (FDP), METAR, TAF, Runway wind, Sunrise & sunset, Zulu clock, Currency and Next flight.
3. Tap Reset to defaults to turn them all back on.

Anything you switch off is never written outside the app. The Active duty (FDP) switch also controls the Live Activity: turn it off and the countdown never leaves the app.

The app lock goes further. While the app is locked, widgets, the Watch app, Live Activities and Spotlight show no duty or flight data; unlock the app and they fill in again. Nothing reaches the widget, the Watch or the Live Activity until you have accepted the app's current disclaimer.

How to read the duty Live Activity

There is nothing to add or configure. While a duty is in progress, a countdown card appears on the lock screen and in the Dynamic Island, and disappears when the duty ends.

1. Read the large countdown. It counts down to the earlier of your planned off-duty time and the FDP limit the Duty & FTL engine computed.
2. Read the used-versus-allowed bar, the Off by hard-stop time, the next report time, and the destination's flight rules chip.
3. Check the card's status line. If the app has not been able to refresh the figures, the card says they are not current and to open the app.

How to use the Apple Watch app

1. Open the companion Pilot EFB app on your Apple Watch. It is fed by your iPhone.
2. Read a Zulu clock with your home base's local time, the active duty's FDP countdown with its budget bar, your destination's flight rules, your most urgent currency item, your next flight with its report time, and METAR and TAF cards for your home base and the other airports your widgets can follow.
3. Add the Zulu, FDP or currency complication to a watch face.

The Watch app shows when its figures were last updated and says "No active duty" or "No data yet" rather than inventing a number. Each page ends with its framing, verbatim: "Personal planning only." under the duty figures, and "Reference only - verify officially." under the weather.

Free vs Pro in Notifications & Widgets

Troubleshooting

No alert arrived, not even the test. Check the permission card at the top of Settings > Notifications. If it reads off, tap the button into iOS Settings and allow notifications, then tap Send a test alert again.

A NOTAM or weather alert arrived for one airport but not another. On the free tier, location alerts cover one watched location. Pro alerts on every location you watch; viewing NOTAMs and weather for any airport is free.

A currency reminder did not fire overnight. Quiet hours defer currency and pinned-NOTAM reminders until the window ends. Crew rest is the one reminder that fires during quiet hours.

A widget is showing an old METAR. Open the app: that refreshes every airport your widgets follow. Then check Refresh while the app is closed under Settings > Widgets & Live Activity for the last widget fetch. The widget does not fetch when your Network & data settings are manual-only, or on mobile data with Wi-Fi-only or the roaming guard on, and iOS still chooses how often it asks.

A widget row says the surface is off. Open Settings > Widgets & Live Activity and switch that surface back on, or tap Reset to defaults.

The widget, Watch and Live Activity went empty. Check whether the app lock is engaged. While the app is locked they show no duty or flight data; unlock the app and they fill in again.

The Live Activity says its figures are not current. The app has not been able to refresh them. Open the app on your iPhone.

Where next

• NOTAMs - the alerts' biggest customer: watched locations, severity levels and keyword highlights.
• Weather - the alert types and the personal minimums behind the breach alerts.
• Duty & FTL - the engine the Live Activity and FDP widget rows count down against.
• Home - the dashboard the bell rides on.
• Free vs Pro - the one-location alert allowance, and what Pro unlocks.