Comparison

AstroWidget vs Cosmic Specks

Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.

Head to head
About

AstroWidget

Access real-time astronomical data with customizable widgets. Track celestial bodies like planets, comets, and the moon, with special alerts for lunar events. Explore the night sky with interactive horizon and map views.

Highlights
  • Real-time celestial body tracking
  • Customizable astronomy widgets
  • Moon phase and special event alerts
  • Horizon and star map views
  • Interactive date and time adjustments
  • Comet and planet position display
Features
Read full description

The main app shows the planet orbits around the Sun. User can quickly change the date using the Year input and day slider. The moon orbit is displayed relatively to the Earth motion. Quick glance of the positions of the sun, moon and planets at your current location, birthday or important market event. Home Screen Widgets: Moon - Provide information for its phase, Supermoon, eclipse etc. Orbit - Provide information for planets location and conjunction etc. Horizon (Subscription required) - Provide live information for your local window view with star, planet, Sun and moon phase. Enjoy these simple and beautiful widgets! And feedback to me at ustransit74@gmail.com if you want more. Privacy policy and term of use (EULA) is at https://deepskycolor.blogspot.com/2018/12/privacy-policy-for-deep-sky-color-app.html

About

Cosmic Specks

Explore the solar system with accurate scale and orbital mechanics. This app removes common simplifications to reveal the true vastness and complexity of space. Witness planetary rotations, eclipses, and comet paths with unprecedented detail.

Highlights
  • Accurate planetary scale
  • True orbital inclinations
  • Realistic axial rotations
  • Detailed comet paths
  • Time-based simulations
  • Precise eclipse visualization
  • Data-driven accuracy indicators
Features
Read full description

Space is almost all empty. That turns out to be the beautiful part. Every picture of the solar system you've ever seen tells you small white lies. The planets are swollen so you can see them. The orbits are squashed flat and drawn as tidy circles. Everything is crowded together so it fits on the page. Cosmic Specks is the same solar system with the lies switched off, one at a time, so you can build an intuition for what was actually removed. IT OPENS WITH THE ARGUMENT. A ninety-second tour names the five lies and switches each one off, live: the sizes, the flatness, the circles, the stillness, the diagram eclipses. IT ISN'T FLAT. Turn on inclinations and the orbits fan out into the tilted planes they really occupy — Pluto's 17°, Mercury's 7°, the quiet disagreement the flat diagram hides. EVERYTHING SPINS. Each body turns on its own axis, at its own rate, at its own lean: Venus backwards, Uranus on its side, the Moon locked forever facing home. HALLEY'S COMET TAKES AN EPIC RUN. Seventy-six years, out past Neptune and back, on an orbit so long and lopsided it barely belongs on the same diagram. SWIM THROUGH TIME. Watch conjunctions close, planets loop backwards through retrograde, Saturn's rings turn edge-on and all but vanish, Venus cross the face of the Sun. JUMP TO A PRECISE ECLIPSE and see how tight the Moon's shadow really is — a couple of hundred kilometres of darkness, brushing over the Earth for a few minutes, landing on the real map where it really lands. On 2 August 2027 it crosses southern Spain and Egypt; jump there and watch. And when you want the honest picture of size: one tap drops everything to true scale, where the planets become the specks they are, and the emptiness is the whole photograph. HONEST BY CONSTRUCTION. Every solar-system app draws a picture; this one also shows you the picture's error. Bodies are enlarged so you can see them at all — and the exact factors are printed on screen the entire time you're looking (Sun ×24, bodies ≤×750). Positions are computed on your device from orbital elements, so the app also tells you when it stops being trustworthy: good near today, approximate centuries out, illustrative in the deep millennia. Even the maps admit their gaps: Miranda is half blank because humanity has only ever seen half of it. WHAT IT DOESN'T DO. No account. No ads. No subscription. No analytics — App Privacy is "Data Not Collected". Nothing leaves your phone. Free, with one optional purchase that opens 10,000 years in each direction.

Screenshots

AstroWidget2 screens
Cosmic Specks4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is review sentiment: Cosmic Specks at 100% against AstroWidget's 0%. Cosmic Specks also leads on update cadence (daily vs fortnightly). AstroWidget's advantage is in-app purchases (none vs 1). On price, ads, device support and iOS requirement there is nothing between them.

Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

Both are free to download. Cosmic Specks sells 1 one-off in-app purchase. AstroWidget asks for nothing beyond the download.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

AstroWidget ships an update fortnightly, Cosmic Specks daily. The most recent releases landed on October 24, 2026 and October 12, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard4 real differences · 6 level
AstroWidget versus Cosmic Specks: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterAstroWidgetCosmic Specks
PriceFreeFree
Rating—5.0 (2 ratings) — better
Positive reviews0.0% of reviews100.0% of reviews — better
Number of ratings—2 — better
Update frequencyFortnightlyDaily — better
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNo — betterYes
MonetizationFree — betterFree with in-app purchases
DevicesiPhone, iPadiPhone, iPad
Requires iOS17.017.0
Further details — not scored
Size5 MB12 MB
Age rating4+4+
Developeryong chong lohKaolin Fire

Customer experience

AstroWidget

Written reviews2 reviews
Positive0.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative100.0%

Cosmic Specks

All ratings2 ratings
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%
Written reviews1 reviews
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%

In-app purchases

None

AstroWidget

No in-app purchases

1 purchases

Cosmic Specks

One-time1
  • 20,000 Years$2.99

Questions

Is AstroWidget free?
AstroWidget is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Is Cosmic Specks free?
Cosmic Specks is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Do AstroWidget or Cosmic Specks have ads?
Neither AstroWidget nor Cosmic Specks shows ads.
Which is updated more often, AstroWidget or Cosmic Specks?
AstroWidget ships an update fortnightly, and Cosmic Specks daily. Most recently, AstroWidget was updated on October 24, 2026 and Cosmic Specks on October 12, 2026.

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