I just got back from an 800nm round trip and I wanted to give some feedback. I also had a borrowed Garmin 496, but I couldn't get the XM weather to work so I ended up using the iFly exclusively. Executive summary: I love it!
I think I understand all the features and I was using them- but if I'm asking for something it already does, let me know. Some observations/ bugs/ requests for improvements:
*) The touch screen works much better with a stylus than my fat fingers. I ended up using a pen (with cap on). My fingers can press the large buttons on the map screen, although in bright light, they fade too much and are nearly invisible, requiring two touches, one to get them to reappear, and another to push the button. It would be nice to optionally have the buttons not fade at all.
*) I didn't mount the unit, and tried to keep in on my lap board. However it would lose reception occasionally and slide off often, so I put it on the empty right side seat. It would be best with a yoke mount and an external antenna, IMHO.
*) There seems to be some flakiness in the sectional map switching. Unfortunately it happens near my home drome, at the border between san antonio and houston sectionals. If I'm on the eastern edge on the san antonio section and I touch the map, it switches to the Houston sectional, even if I am off the western edge of the Houston map. I'm not touching the "switch maps' button, just the map itself. This was never a serious problem when tracking during a flight, however, just when scrolling around the map.
*) I did keep track of my flight on paper sectionals, and I tended to use the paper maps for frequencies. This was mainly due to the purple track line sometimes covering the purple frequency text making it difficult to read. Although you can easily grab the line and move it, near waypoints (and destination airports) you can't move it enough to get it out of the way. Not sure I can recommend a solution to this...
*) I had to deal with roving TFRs. I was able to upload the TFR data into the iFLY, however, it ended up not being very useful. The iFly displayed all the 30nm radius circles with red background, so there was simply a very large smear of red across my route of flight. I had to go to the FAA website, decode the text TFR, draw the circles on my sectionals with the times they were active, in order to plan the flight. I ended up flying through one of the circles about 30 min after it expired (after calling FS 3 times in order to get someone who could confidently tell me that circle had expired). Heres my simpe suggestion: add a light edge around the circles, so I can see where one ends and another begins. More complex: allow a press inside the airspace to show data on the TFRs such as active times. You could add this feature for MOAs (altitudes) as well, it would be a very nice feature.
*) The flight planning and flight tracking is very, very good. I was able to switch flight plans in the air and it knew right away which leg I was on. Entering waypoints is very quick and intuitive.
*) As other have suggested, more instrument related to the flight plan progress would be nice. Also, on power-up it always reverts to the "basic" default instrument group- it would be nice if it remembered the previous setting, when I am using my custom instrument group.
*) It would be nice to more easily access the airport data page for airports on or near the current flight plan or segment. I found the press and hold to get a pop-up menu- then having to select again to get another menu - a bit cumbersome. Maybe a fast-track on the main menu or another push button on the main map page?
I'm sure there was more, but this is long enough. Hope it helps,
Andy
p.s. don't forget the RS-232 NEMA output for autopilot control. Lots of experimental aircraft owners won't give a second look without that option.