Oh the horrors! From time to time I receive an email from someone saying that for this reason or that reason they have to give up their iPhone for Andriod, Palm, (blackberry), Symbian (??) and will really miss Distant Suns, cuz it doesn’t work on Android, Palm. (blackberrt) or Symbian (??) There are easy ways around that. Even though your iPhone won’t be able to make any more calls, doesn’t mean you can’t use as a glorified iPod/Touch. And you...

The first total lunar eclipse in nearly two years happens tomorrow UTC, or late tonight in the most favorable location of the US West Coast, but all of the US and Central America. Europe will see the beginning, with totality right around moonset. Could make some beautiful photos with local landscapes in the foreground. A lot of news outlets are making a big deal that this is the lunar eclipse on the Winter solstice in about 4 bazillion years....

It looks as if iOS 4.2 aggravated the occasional problem with the compass getting stuck on North. That helped me track it down. It apparently wasn’t an iOS bug that I originally thought, but came as a result of something that was really badly documented in the way the magnetometer was being handled. And 4.2 made it more sensitive to that issue. My 3GS on 4.1 works fine, but my iPhone 4 on 4.2.1 was hit and miss when it came to aiming. But...

It seems as if the compass has gotten wonkier over the past few weeks. It was pretty stable for me at least until recently. I’ll hit the boards and see what the story is on this. Maybe a subtle mod in 4.2 perhaps.

Early Thursday morning, November 18, is the peak of the legendary Leonid meteor shower. It is expected to deliver a modest 15 to 25 meteors per hour as compared to thousands at peak years (2002/2003), but fun nonetheless. Best times to observe are predawn on Thursday, but if you’re hardcore about this, you can start late Wednesday evening. Bring popcorn and hot cocoa, and of course, your iPhoneTouchPad. To commemorate this event and to help my...

I have just uploaded the most current preference and quickstart files for both Distant Suns 2 and Distant Suns 3. Several users have asked for these so they can reference them off line. Download them here .