There are many good ideas that the Litchi community has come up with concerning the Litchi app. But just how much is possible given the time, resources and cost that must be considered? Vico said it best in a prior post when it was expressed like this “… But this will be added whenever we get to it.” This important truth tells us we can’t have everything that is possible and good because it would require more resources and would cost us more too as Litchi became more expensive to purchase. What is realistic for us to expect as customers and community members? How can we be better informed about what to expect and when? Just some thoughts, thank you.
I would suggest that Litchi is just perfect as it is at present.
Apart from just one improvement,
that of installing proportional speed increase or decrease between waypoints,
Litchi does not need any further " Improvements ".
As it is, it is light, fresh and clean, easy to use.
Don’t want any more further improvements, functions, which will introduce bloat,
more clutter on the screen,
more confusion and things to forget when out flying in the fields.
Reading through all the Litchi forum comments, it is clear that a lot of
people have a lot of struggle with it as it is.
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You must consider what Litchi’s core values or tenets are. I am not part of Litchi but I would suggest they might include something like:
- To extend the capabilities of DJI Drones.
- Not to be a replacement for the DJI apps.
It could be argued that the primary functionality that Litchi adds to DJI drones are waypoint missions and tools that facilitate those missions. DJI’s implementation of waypoints is (was) awkward and clumsy and should only be considered as a proof-of-concept. Litchi’s waypoint implementation, including the Mission Hub, extended that capability making it more accessible to everyone. I would guess that 90% (I just made that number up) of people who buy Litchi, bought it for its waypoint capability. Of course, others may have bought it for other reasons but I would assume most were drawn to it for its waypoint functions.
As far as improvements go, I am most interested in any improvement to waypoint functionality such as:
- Handling speed changes between waypoints just as heading changes are handled
- Improving Virtual Stick functionality to minimize jerkiness
Generally, I am less interested in extending Litchi’s capabilities to those functions that can already be done with DJI’s apps. I would prefer that Litchi continues to be a light-weight app that facilitates waypoint missions and not a bloated app that tries to do everything anyone could ever want.
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I think this could be easily implemented, I have seen it with other software products. Just introduce a development timeline discussion. That way we can see what Litchi are planning, what the likely timeline for implementation is and whether this is a bug fix or a feature addition.
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I’m just commenting on this, I’m not trying to start an argument 
That means additional features, bug fixes etc. There’s lots of room for this without necessarily causing additional clutter.
I’m not sure how they expect to square this with the way Litchi works. It doesn’t augment the DJI app, it’s mean to be used independently, and that means its a replacement for the DJI App. I mean, they don’t say “start the DJI app and then start Litchi”, they tell you to start the Litchi app, so they are replacing the DJI App when you want to use additional functionality. They do this because they think their app does it better than the DJI app.
But, that’s just how I see it.
The problem they have is that, if they are replacing the DJI app then they have to be at least as good as the DJI app to begin with. I’m not sure that’s the case at present for some functions.
It is unlikely that Litchi will ever be a total replacement for the DJI apps. Litchi is dependent upon the functions offered in the DJI SDK while the DJI apps are not. This will limit the features that Litchi can provide. For example, I am pretty sure that DJI does not provide a way to unlock an authorization zone using their SDK. As a result, in order to fly a Litchi mission in an authorization zone, you must first use the DJI app to perform the unlocking, then go back to Litchi to fly the mission. It is the same situation with activating your drone. The SDK does not provide that capability. There is a substantial list of other functions that can only be performed by the DJI apps. Litchi will always be limited to what DJI provides in their SDK and therefore will never be a total replacement for the DJI apps.
It is more realistic to think of Litchi as an application that extends the capabilities of your drone and not an application that will totally eliminate the need for DJI Fly/Go/Go4. Even so, Litchi provides most of what is required to fly a drone and does it very well, minimizing the need to use DJI Fly (or Go/Go4).
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Interesting, I did not know that. 
Yes, that’s very true.
By way of additional features, or expansion of the current set, I wish they would incorporate a way to add “special functions” - such as “Orbit” into the “actions” menu for waypoint missions (they must be able to daisy-chain via a macro if they are unable to do it programmatically). It is possible as it’s been done in the Maven app.
For transparency, I’m a new Litchi user, having come to the app following a hardware change that ruled out my continued use of Maven. So I am still ignorant of many of the things that you can and cannot do with Litchi. I am always well aware of this and am always grateful to more experienced Litchi user for advice and guidance.
I like many of the features of Litchi, but also wonder why some features, features I have seen on other apps, are not available in Litchi. If DJI make these features available in their Go4 or Fly apps, I don’t see why they can’t be included in Litchi. The SDK obviously supports it.