Distant Suns

Both Distant Suns 3.1.1 and 2.2.1 have been uploaded to Apple and are now waiting for review. These updates were to address some compass issues that seem to primarily effect iPad users. It appears as if the iPad compass is much fussier than the iPhone’s so needs some extra tender luv’n care.

The main issue is that the compass doesn’t work in landscape mode, and some people have mentioned that it tends to drift towards the north at times.

All of my apps make use of Apple’s “Push Notification” service, a means of sending out short announcements to users of specific applications without needing those applications to actually be running. When an app is installed that has APN available, the system will warn you and specifically ask if you want to receive notifications from that app. That is under Apple’s domain, so there is no way for a wiley app author to  ”sneak” APN in under the radar without you knowning and having the chance to authorize  it.

(more…)

Sorry guys for the weird message from Grand Tour yesterday. It was supposed to be a Perseid meteor shower message. Instead it was the test message meant for a debug version of the app using Apple’s “push notification” service. It’s pretty complicated to use, so there are companies that handle all of the messy stuff in between the developer and the user’s device. One company is Urban Airship, so the “hello from Urban Airship” was their test message.

You can turn off push notifications in the devices preferences, but they are meant for astronomical announcements an sale info.

So sorry.

I get this question a lot. And yes, it is legitimate to ask. The reason why I don’t upgrade Distant Suns 2 users to version 3 is simple: There is no way to do that on the Appstore between two different apps. “Ok, hotshot, why have two versions of the same thing? Couldn’t you have just made Distant Suns 2 the universal app and not have another version for sale?”

(more…)

After leaving my cameras in the men’s room at Gate 25 of the Santiago, Chile airport (D’oh!), it becamenecessary to make my iPhone 4 my exclusive camera to shoot the July 11 total solar eclipse.

This posting is merely some observations about the phone’s handling in less than ideal conditions.

The eclipse’s path began in Argentinean Patagonia, the most southern province in Argentina. Our target was the town of El Catafane, pop. 25000, a popular destination for summer vacationers.

(more…)

So I was on my way to South America last week for the July 11 eclipse, and a funny (as in really stupid funny) thing happened to me. I left $600 of camera gear in the men’s restroom. Fifteen minutes later when I discovered this little jewel in the crown of stupidity, my new Canon ELPH, and relatively new Canon SX10IS had vanished to the hands of some lucky, bas….er, “fortunate traveler.”

As a longtime amateur photographer, I always yearn (yes, yearn) for great opportunities to shoot stuff…with a camera that is! And now I had none…oops, wait a minute there Bunky, I have my trusty new iPhone 4!

So this was going to be an iPhone 4 expedition only. A few years ago I sniffed at people whipping out their Razrs or similar class phones to shoot once-in-a-lifetime photos…now I had to be one. Grrr. Except the quality of the built in phone cameras are much better now, and the iPhone 4 is no exception. So I thought maybe I should document this to show how capable the little camera is. Note that Wordpress does compress images quite a lot, so these will have some noticeable compression artifacts when displayed full size.

The expedition started with a 3 day side jaunt to Chile’s Easter Island, otherwise known as the place of those “damned creepy giant heads.”

Besides being loaded down with my iPhone 4, I had a small Celestron Firstscope to examine the southern skies. Unfortunately, said skies were clouded over most of the time so I only caught a quick glimpse of the famous Omega Centauri globular cluster from off the balcony of our hotel. (more…)

Wow!

Okay, okay, more detail. We all know now about what the iPhone 4 holds, as a gazillion and a half reviews have already appeared. But I thought I could add a few extra details.

The Screen: OMG! Yes, it’s that good. Screen resolution has been the last real limitations in mobile platforms now since cpu, memory

and battery issues are quickly fading away.  When I first saw the Droid in action, I knew that the next iPhone would have to compete with that. It’s screen was also very good compared to the now quaint 320×480 resolution of Apple’s devices. But once you see anything rendered in the iPhone 4’s display you will never be able to look at your iPods or older iPhones without at least a hint of eyestrain and remorse.

(more…)

Distant Suns 3 is a major upgrade (like, duh), and as such will still have a few teething pains no doubt. I had four very good beta testers but I am sure things were missed by them. Both usability issues and bugs. With the usability issues a lot of things that “seemed like a good idea at the time” might not actually be, so let me know and they’ll go out in the first maintenance release.

And if you find anything that might be an, uh, “undocumented feature” log them here. One that has been reported already is that the toolbar gets clipped if you launch the app from an iPad while it is sitting face up. Launch it from an angle and it should work fine.

Another issue is that sometimes it starts up with no toolbars. One new feature is the ability to remove toolbars by hitting the large X in the bottom right corner to remove screen clutter. It seems like somehow the app might start up with the bar hidden in some cases. If that happens, tap the round marble-like button in the lower right corner.

I will try to answer all questions within a few hours.

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.

[UPDATE] If you are getting random crashes with the iPad version of Distant Suns see if your iPad case has magnetic latches. Some clever designer forgot that magnets+things-with-a-compass=really dumb.

Distant Sun’s didn’t know how to process those kind of extreme heading errors and would just check out. That has been fixed and should be in the chute shortly.