I had an interesting encounter a little while ago. A 10 year old asked me how much does Distant Suns cost in the App Store. I said “10 bucks.” “Why so much?” he responded…. One of the many paradigms that shifted when the App Store first opened up was the pricing model. It was obvious that the apps would cost less then their CD-ROM/store shelf variants. But how much was underestimated. Apple expected games that might retail for $30 to drop down...

First Light Designs announced today that they’ve licensed the real sky from the Almighty for use in the award winning astronomy program Distant Suns. Mike Smithwick, the author of the popular iPad app, says that the Lord will help integrate his unique ReST technology, Real Star Technology technology, into his own software over the next era. “While Apple’s devices have terrific capabilities on their own, it became necessary to reach out and find...

In the next couple of weeks you will likely hear much about a comet with the decidedly unglamorous name of “Pan-STARRS” (or technically: “Comet C/2011 L4 Pan-STARRS”). The first significant naked eye comet since Comet McNaught in2007, Pan-STARRS is already visible to the southern hemisphere and brightening steadily each day. Dozens of comets are discovered each year, most quietly anonymous, meekly shining at magnitudes that require very good...

I have received a some of emails regarding the latest release of Distant Suns(max) causing occasional crashes on startup.  I have found one possible problem on iPads running with pre-iOS 5 installations. So you can fix it by upgrading. If that doesn’t work it might be something else, so contact us at here, and report what version of iOS and device you are using.

We are pleased to announce that Distant Suns has partnered with the SETI Institute in Sunnyvale, California to highlight in real-time SETI candidate star systems that are being monitored. SETI (Search For Extraterrestrial Intelligence) primarily uses the Allen Telescope Array (ATA) located near Mt. Lassen in Northern California to conduct its studies. The ATA, financed in part by Microsoft Cofounder,Paul Allen, us made up of over 40 dishes....

(Hey, if I didn’t plan on bookending the “Something Old” posting, I would’ve used another title). Amongst Apple-fanboys (fanboyz?) Friday the 21st will forever be known as iPhone 5 day. Or the day-that-gave-us-an-extra-half-inch-of-screen-real-estate. Oh happy thoughts. It was fun to read all of the reviewers making use of one of the most overused tech phrases of the past few years (sorry TheVerge), which has got to be such&such is...