Distant Suns 5 User Reviews

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Distant Suns 5

I purchased this to replace an 12 year old iphone app, kind of sorry in the app’s performance. I’m staring at the 1st quarter moon one hour before sun set but this app can’t seem to find the moon.
60+years amateur astronomer with Iphone 14+ running IOS 18.2 and some basic knowledge of the sky. I give it a polite 2 star rating.

Update
My iphone received an up date and the app started to work as intended. If the text was more readable for senior eyes I would rate higher.
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Distant Suns 5

I purchased this to replace an 12 year old iphone app, kind of sorry in the app’s performance. I’m staring at the 1st quarter moon one hour before sun set but this app can’t seem to find the moon.
60+years amateur astronomer with Iphone 14+ running IOS 18.2 and some basic knowledge of the sky. I give it a polite 2 star rating.
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iCloud

Constantly telling me I’m not logged in to iCloud. I most certainly am. App used to wok

Still my Favorite

I’ve been using Distant Suns since the Amiga days. Still my go-to app for star gazing.

syncing services don't work

Although I am very much signed in to iCloud the application will not recognize that and as a result won't sync properly. Crashes after toggling permissions in settings. This becomes permanent. After uninstalling and reinstalling the application no longer presents anything but a blackscreen after the tutorial is finished. This is perhaps what others are running into as well. iPad Pro 12.9" 5th Gen. iOS 15.5 This is super disappointing, but I understand your best. We had DS on Mac OS 7.5 in the 90s and it was largely responsible for my unending fascination with the cosmos. How do you look at the solar system or other objects from different angles? That was one of the best and most important features of the early Distant Sun Programs.
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Response from developer

Thanks for the input. I'll take a look at it. Would you mind contacting via support@distantsuns.com?

Broken

Simply fails to open on an iPad mini using iOS 14.6. Tried deleting the app, then redownloading and reinstalling it, but it’s still broken.

Response from developer

Sorry for the troubles. I use an iPad Mini 3/16Gig, with barely enough space in my testing, but I wonder if there's a localization issue. Give me a shout so I can get this worked out.

Now it just crashes.

I have owned Distant Suns apps for many, many years. It used to be really awesome. In recent years I have had several problems with Distant Suns Max (Now Distant Suns 5, I guess). I have tried to contact the developer but never gotten a reply. Now it won’t even open on my iPad. It just crashes. I tried deleting the app and re-downloading; no change. I need to find another astronomy app. IPad Pro 10.5 inch, iPadOS 14.5.1
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Response from developer

HI, sorry about the crashing, If you can send me some details, I'd certainly want to get this worked out. I test it on four different devices over the course of 2 to 3 days, but I know there's always something I may have missed. My main dev machine is the same as yours, iPad Pro/10.5

Used to be one of my favorite apps

I first downloaded Distant Suns in 2008 for my iPhone 3G, and it was mind-blowing. I’ve been using it on and off since then. However, the app has become nearly unusable lately. It doesn’t start off in AR/compass mode, and tapping on a constellation or a star simply doesn’t work anymore. I couldn’t even use it on Sirius! Developer, please update and fix this app so it works properly on the latest version of iOS.
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Response from developer

Would you be able to contact me via Facebook or Twitter? I'd like get you signed up as a beta tester to track this down. I have 6 different iOS devices and it's fine on all six so am baffled about this. https://www.facebook.com/distantsuns

New phone

Heard about this app from a friend and bought it immediately. I can only get it to work on my iPhone four. Will not work with my iPhone 11 🤷🏻‍♀️

Crashes without opening

It just won’t open but crashes every time.

Response from developer

What device are you using?

App crashes on startup.

Won’t load. Crashes on startup.

Falling into disrepair?

I’ve used and loved the app for years, but it no longer works on my new iPhone SE. the button to select ([]) an object doesn’t do anything; pressing stars under prefs crashes it; the help links don’t work. I’m sad.

Gone downhill

The old version was so good I bought the full version. The recent UI changes have made it all but unusable. It’s unresponsive and non-intuitive. Very disappointed.

New Bug ios13

Love this ap, but just installed update and immediately found bug. Ios 13.4.1 on iphone 11pro setting stars preference results in immediate crash. Can’t find any support link so posting this as a review.

What happened?

I first started using DS on the Amiga around 1990. The app was great til V5. As others have said the new UI is a big step back. It looked great before and didn’t need a change.

Also the app crashes now when you go to prefs/stars. Can’t adjust any star prefs.

Hopefully the app is being updated.

Response from developer

Sorry for the issues with the star-prefs. I cannot reproduce it here, so it really has me head scratching.

Crashes on iPhone X - used to be awesome...

I bought Distant Suns 10 or so years ago and it was awesome. Since then it has gone a bit down hill. Now when launching you don’t immediately get the live sky view, from what I can tell, and when you do go the the live view, it crashes when adjusting preferences... such a shame as it was the BEST star app and the compass and gyro features made it unbelievable for showing people what’s in the sky. Such a shame.
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Love, but 1 little prob

Lately, when I click on preferences and Stars, the app crashes. Please fix. I do love this app.

Compass Tracking doesn’t

Have an iPhone XS Max with IOS 13.4.1 with Distant Suns Max. For some reason the compass tracking has stopped operation. The app has been granted GPS access with ‘while using app’ status and worked in the past. I haven’t used it in a few months and when I went to use it a few nights ago it no longer tracked.
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Won’t load!!!!

Keeps flashing back and forth from the “allow access box” and “only while using app”.!!!
Won’t stop flashing long enough to click on anything. I have an iPhone 8
with the latest updates.

You took a great app and completely screwed it up

Distant Suns has been my goto app for the night sky until now. When I open it it asks to use location services, before I select it, it goes away and then locks up my phone.