Distant Suns

Developer: Mike Smithwick
Category: Education
Version: 1.3.1
Release Date: August 1, 2009
Size: 8.2 MB
Price: $0.99
Rating 10/10

The apps available in the App Store have come a long, long (or far, far) way from the fart and beer apps that we used to use to show off the superiority of the iPhone over all other phones. Distant Suns is a great example of how seriously sophisticated applications have been brought to the world of the iPhone.

Distant suns has been around a long time, it was first available on desktop machines in 1987, so the data base it draws from has been polished to perfection. I'm completely blown away by how cool Distant Suns for iPhone is and by how much of an annoying geek I have become as soon as the sun goes down on a clear night. Want to know what's up there right now? No? Well you're getting it anyways. I'm going to name every visible star, constellation, planet, nebula, meteor shower, all billions and billions of 'em- faster than you can say "Look, I can see Uranus!". Why? Because I can.

Distant Suns offers an incredibly realistic view of the night sky. The app is intuitive, straightforward and easy to use, yet at the same time scientifically complex and offers a literal treasure trove of astronomical information. The first screen shows the night sky from your vantage point, using the GPS feature in your phone. You can drag around the sky, and pinch to zoom in. All of the constellations and planets are labeled, and you can select in the settings to have the outlines of the constellations drawn in. Amazingly, every single pinpoint of light visible on the screen can be tapped on and dragged into a cross hair, then tapped again. This will name the object and give it's type, galaxy and distance away in light years. Mindblowing.

In the menu options simply select a genre, then a planet, constellation, asterism, deep-sky wonder, star, or a list of "other cool stuff", tap on it, read it's data, allow the app to steer you to it in the night sky, zoom in on it, view a beautiful picture of it, on and on and on to infinity. Read that last part in a totally inappropriate Stephen Hawking synth-voice.

You can take a tour of the night sky, by touching a forward or back arrow the app will guide you through and name the major planets, constellations and other objects in each of the four quadrants. Turn on the clock and the app will move the night sky forward or backward in time as it would move from your vantage point on earth. Or actually as you would move through it. Alerts at the top of the screen tell you what special events are occurring. At the time this review was being written the Perseid Meteor Shower was going on. See? I couldn't resist getting that in.

To run through all of the features of this app would take far too long. In fact it has been a process just to scratch the surface of the information made available. I have Distant Suns sitting right next to my weather apps, and it looks right at home there. This is an app that will live on your phone forever, or until the sun burns out, or an asteroid hits us, but then none of those events will take you by surprise because with this app you will see it coming. Distant Suns goes for $5.99, and is worth every single penny. When you want to show off your phone now, instead of firing off a fart app or shaking a baby, show off Distant Suns and blow minds. This app is a totally impressive winner.