Hi Jim,
> I have one question about the ASIair updates - are the firmware and app updates all handled through the application or do I need
> to go to a web site to download (recall first launching the app there were some updates but didn't watch carefully what was updating).
The ASIAIR firmware (in the Raspberry Pi SD card) is a payload that is contained in the ASIAIR app.
When you launch a new ASIAIR app, it apparently checks if the ASIAIR firmware is in sync. If not, it will ask you if you would like to push the firmware to the Raspberry Pi.
There is no need to track the firmware versions yourself. The ASIAIR app will do it for you.
Be sure that you have a good WiFi connection before you tell the ASIAIR app to go ahead and update the firmware, and make sure both ASIAIR (if it is on battery) and iPad have good battery levels. If you lose WiFi connection while updating the firmware, you might corrupt the SD card and need to flash a fresh copy.
It usually takes less than 2 minutes for firmware update to complete on 5 GHz WiFi, but don't trust the progress bar in the ASIAIR app; I have never seen that to be accurate between my two iPad pros and an iPod touch :-).
Also, if you are on iOS, you may want to wait a week or two after a new ASIAIR app is released before installing it. Check the ASIAIR Facebook page in the meantime for reports on your specific mount still works. ZWO camera and EAF seem OK, but third party stuff like mounts and DSLR cameras seem to go through very little regression testing.
The problem with iOS is that after you download a new non-working version, you cannot go back to an older working version. With Android, you can revert back to an older APK file (and flashing older firmware), but with iOS, there is no going back. My RainbowAstro mount was rendered useless with ASIAIR between v1.2 and v1.3). I wish ZWO could establish two different apps (one app called ASIAIR Backup or something), so that you can still run the older version of the app.
Since you mentioned that you have two iPads, you can use one iPad as the guinea pig for new software releases. If a new version stops working, go back to an older archived SD card image and the older working app on the "other" iPad.
Chen