Distant Suns 3 has been released to the Appstore. This is a universal app, and recommended for higher end devices: iPhone 3GS and iPad or above. It will work okay on a 2G machine, and hardly on a 1G. If you want small and fast, go with DS2.

Another in a very occasional series of columns covering the craft of programming and what it takes to create one of those app things. Even though this article is about computer languages it is not meant at all to teach one how to “speak” in any of these languages, for that is light-years beyond the scope of this article. A computer program is likened to a recipe. A recipe with potentially millions of steps that could come crashing down in a...

About 30 minutes ago the first maintenance release of DS for the iPad was released: 2.1.5. This fixes the missing lat/long wheels bug, and addresses some issues that makes it truly universal. NOTE: The link on this page is for the iPhone version only. If you want the universal one, go to: http://itunes.apple.com/app/distant-suns-for-ipad-astronomy/id363418936?mt=8

Celebrating the 20th anniversary of the Hubble Space Telescope, Distant Suns for both the iPhone and iPad will be on sale thru April 24. The Universe has never been so cool looking. (If you don’t see the sale price of $3.99 US, wait a little while as it takes time for changes to the store to ripple around the world).

When I reserved my iPad, I selected Apple’s flagship store in Palo Alto for pickup. I had never quite understood the Apple line mentality. After all, most people could just save a lot of time and either order one online or wait a day or two. Now I see the light. Plus I absolutely needed to get a unit ASAP to test my software, Distant Suns. It was already live in the App Store and had over 80 downloads, so I needed to see what others were to...

Make sure to get the right version. There is the iPhone only, and the iPad/Universal variants. The link in the display to the right is the iPhone only version. For the iPad/Universal version go to: http://itunes.apple.com/app/distant-suns-for-ipad-astronomy/id363418936?mt=8 Why to separate products? Due to many factors, Distant Suns for the iPad is currently a separate product from Distant Suns/iPhone, meaning no free upgrade for the time...