Pretty sure they use a couple transistors and integrated circuits in planes now.

There may be a few requirements for testing and approval of electronics however.

I think that is for passengers during the critical phases (takeoff/landing) so that they are not distracted.

A few airlines have switched over to digital maps for airports, since they offer some substantial advantages (less weight, more up to date, etc).

If you want to have a look at one of these apps, its on the public app store (https://itunes.apple.com/de/app/lido-iroutemanual-aeronautic...) - though I could not find a source that AA is using the LH Systems app (and if it was the source of the problem, I guess there would be several more stories about it.

edit: Source: did some work for LH Systems, but not affiliated with them.

FAA permitted "PED" use (Personal Electronic Devices) for passengers from late 2013: http://www.faa.gov/news/press_releases/news_story.cfm?cid=TW...

Other countries are slowly following suit.

"Was" being the correct word; airlines have become more and more lenient with that, and I'm sure airplane manufacturers do better shielding and error correction.

This is not true. In fact, we've built our entire business on the fact that pilots can use iPads while flying. www.foreflight.com

Thanks, interesting, and thanks for understanding my point :)

I'm pretty confident that pilots are required to be able to navigate with pencil and paper flight map, in case of equipment failure.

As such, I'm surprised that airlines would allow iPads to be a critical failure point.

I wish you good luck with your business, which I'm confident is highly valuable.