This is what it means to be Amazon’s Free App of the Day

This is what it means to be Amazon’s Free App of the Day

When we released Distant Suns on the Kindle over a year ago, one of my hopes was that it would be selected as Amazon’s Free App of the Day. And suddenly a couple of months ago I was contacted by Amazon and told that they wanted precisely that and to expect between 75K to 100K downloads! In theory it would generate thousands of new users who would hopefully show their friends Distant Suns and inspire future purchases later on. After...

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T+5 years and counting.

T+5 years and counting.

5 Years ago today, I got this fun little message in my mailbox: Dear Mike Smithwick   The status for the following application has changed to Ready for Sale.   Application Name: Distant Suns Application Version Number: 1.0 Application SKU: 2001   I sold 8 copies that first day. It’s been a fun ride, most of the time. At the start it was pretty easy, in spite of the Appstore crossing the boundary into the unknown land of more than 10,000...

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Distant Suns (max) Tabby award finalist

Distant Suns (max) Tabby award finalist

Gosh, where does one begin. A couple of days ago I received word that Distant Suns (max) was a finalist for the Tabby Awards as best Family oriented tablet application. Nice to see 28 years of work pay off. And what company! This humble one-man and 16 tablet shop is competing against the likes of The Learning Company and Nickelodeon. And my second favorite app (after mine of course), is History Channel’s Civil War Today is in the...

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Apollo 11 remembered

Apollo 11 remembered

I grew up with space. I grew up learning and memorizing the names of each of the astronauts, their histories, flights and records, much in the same way other kids learned batting averages, home run counts, saves and ERAs about their favorite baseball players. Gemini 7, 14 days in space (14!), Gemini 8, first in flight abort, Gemini 4, first US spacewalk, and on and on. Outside of Christmas or my birthday, launch day for Gemini-this or...

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