Ross93,

I would be cautious to use the phrase "this is just the usual thing of resistance to change". While I am certain that resistance to change can leave a distaste with many users, I think it is important to consider that a new layout may not actually be better. I feel that JD was attempting to make this have a similar feel as an iPad without completely copying their design, kind of like the same way college students copy a paragraph into their paper and change a couple words to avoid plagiarism. While I like the customization of a couple things on the 4600 and the ability to have more options on the run screen, I tend to find myself searching for what I need a lot more, even after working with them very often. Another issue is the amount of confirmation notices that are displayed; select a field "are you sure? > ok" click on A+ "are you sure? > ok" open the door of the machine "are you sure you want to get out? > ok". These extra steps and the amount of customization could make it difficult for dealers to support a user over the phone due to displays not being as standard as the previous displays, but with the ability for RDA and the onscreen help, I think most will be okay.

The 4600 is not ready for the "big time" yet, but with the 4640 and the 4600 being nearly identical in operating system and hardware, I think we will see giant leaps in functionality in the next few software releases.

As for the data portion of Gary's post, I think what he is getting at is that he does not want to pass off his data to another party with the hopes that they will keep it safe and never use it for malicious intent. Just this week we saw the RNC leak over a terabyte of data consisting of more than 200 million peoples information. If you are someone, as I am sure Gary is, who has data going back to the 90's and value it like gold, I would not want to "trust" that a multi-billion dollar company is going to do their best to keep it private and not collect data from it. Right now though, I believe the only option is to upload, let it process, and export as .shp? Or just store them until another software company is able to interpret the data properly. It will be interesting to see how non-JD companies handle the ActiveYield data from new combines...

I agree the 4600 display has a lot to offer. Here is what I do not like about the display;

1. It was originally designed for tractor monitoring. Not for record keeping (the 2630 was designed for record keeping and navigation). In my opinion this was an afterthought in the 4600
2. Equipment measurements and other information cannot be imported from Apex. Since the 4600 display calculates equipment measurement differently all of this needs to be redone.
3. Key strokes (presses on the screen) are EXTREMELY non user friendly. Navigating to desired setup screens, field information, navigation, products, etc. Takes 6,7,8 key strokes
4. A major bug that Deere has not fixed yet. In Rate Controller, if you make any equipment changes, this over writes the Equipment measurements. I found this out the hard way.
5. I use 2 Raven chemical injection units on my sprayer, (found out JD at this time allows the use of, but does not support it), under certain circumstances would flip the chem injection units. This could have been serious because I was using 2oz of one chemical and 32oz of another.
6. Another feature not working yet(the 4600 has been out several years) AB curve track. In the 2630 with a curve track you can center yourself when using different size equipment. With the 4600 you have to shift track yourself until you are centered. The centering option is greyed out.
7. 1-800-GREENSTAR support. Non-existent!! Called numerous times for clarification. No one on the front line could help (all they could do is bring up a simulator). I asked to be bumped up to the next level. The answer I got that he was on another line. Asked if I could get a call back, the answer was, “sorry we don’t do that”.

So far MJD is much like Apex (and I agree Apex needs to go away), doesn’t allow editing of application entries. I made a mistake and entered 6 floz on a herbicide application, that I applied 4 floz. This can be serious when it is on someone else’s server, especially if it was off label.

The next post is what I like

You guys are making me feel better about buying new 2630's this spring instead of waiting for a 4640 universal option.