Pocket Universe for iPhone

Hi -

I'm a Dublin-based iPhone developer, and I've written an Astronomy application
called "Pocket Universe".

My goal was to make an application that was interesting and fun, with a sci-fi theme that wouldn't put off beginners.

I'd very much appreciate the input of the local astronomers as to how to improve it for future versions, or receive suggestions for other applications!

Cheers,

John

My Website is:
www.craicdesign.com

and the link to the app on the Apple store is:
itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/...re?id=306916838&mt=8

looks nice, if I get an iphone, I look it up !

Hi John,

Welcome aboard!

That looks intresting!
Does it only work on the iPhone or can it work on the iTouch?

Michael.

Hi - Glad to be here!

It works fine on the Touch too.

Unfortunately there's no easy way to distribute free versions or I'd share it for you to see.

However, I'm always working on updates, so if anyone wants a beta they should feel free to email me the UDID of their iPhone or iPod Touch and I'll add them to the next set of beta releases I send out..

thanks,

John

Hi John,

Your App looks nice.
I'd like to review it for you and maybe test it out for you in the field so to speak
but I recently downloaded the free version of Starmap
from the App Store to my iphone and it was such a good
free 'basic' App that I downloaded the 'Pro' Paid version which was around 15 Euro.
(which I reviewed elsewhere on this site)

From your website and the few images there it looks like a handy App
for beginners and for 2.50 shur how could you go wrong.
Best of luck with it.

Kind regards,

John,

I just bought an iphone last week and have had a look at this app for a few days now.
Some very good features in there. Well worth buying.

Some positive things which come to mind:
* Tonights Sky is very well laid out.
* Planetarium is nice. I like the skip forward/backward in time function.
* I like the Star-Trek feel

I have gone through the program with a critics-eye in order to find ways in which the program could be improved:
* Constellation quiz is a good feature to have. Perhaps extending it to include images of deep sky objects? Also, some of the constellations don't appear correctly on the screen. Difficuly to see what the constellation is if it is completely covered by the text at the bottom of the screen.
* Perhaps have a better integration of astronomy news. At the moment it simply gives a few links to sites. What would be worth doing might be to set up a website yourself which is specifically designed for the iphone which draws in data from space.com or some other space website. Then, when one clicks "Astronomy News" they would see just one webpage containing all the latest news in a format desinged for the iphone. This would make it much easier to read;
* Startup screen is a bit odd IMHO. Could be improved much more. Most of the page just shows the Earth. Of all of my comments, this is the single area most in need of attention IMHO as it is the first thing people will see;
* Add an option to toggle on/off the ecliptic in the planetarium section;
* Auto-tilt didn't work for me;
* Would be good to get more info on an object by clicking on it;
* Lunar Phase page is good. However, it would be much better if it were made into a calendar in which I scroll forward or back a month to see upcoming phases for other months.
* Perhaps add a section for Saturn's moons;
* Moon features page is not great. The image of the Moon is inverted and mirrored. IMHO, it might be better to keep it a little simpler and more for naked-eye/binocular viewers. A few less names might be better too.
* I really like the idea of the Planets Helocentrics Position page. Would be good if there was some way of making it a little clearer to read though. Icons are very small. Would also be good to have a second page to it showing the positions of the outer planets relative to Earth.

Despite all of the above, I still think it is good value for money and well worth buying. I really hope that the above constructive comments are useful as you work on a future release.

Regards & Thanks,

Michael.