Compass Retro vs Shade Compass
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Compass Retro
Experience a photorealistic retro compass that transforms your device into an intuitive navigation tool. It offers a full-screen analog display with smooth needle alignment to true north. Choose between light and dark themes for a visually appealing experience.
- Full-screen photorealistic display
- Smooth true north alignment
- Intuitive analog instrument feel
- Light and dark theme support
- Purpose-built for reliable navigation
Read full descriptionHide full description
A full-screen, photo-realistic retro compass fills your display, recreating the look and feel of a classic analog instrument. When you hold your device flat, the needle smoothly aligns to true north, turning your phone into a dedicated, intuitive navigation tool. The app supports both light and dark themes, each with its own carefully crafted photograph: in light mode, the compass rests in bright, daytime lighting; in dark mode, it's bathed in the warm glow of an evening sunset. This app is purpose-built for one thing only-being a beautiful, reliable compass-with no extra screens, menus, or distracting features.
Shade Compass
Visualize the sun's path and your shadow's position throughout the day. Plan outdoor activities, photography, or gardening with augmented reality features and detailed celestial data.
- Live sun and shadow visualization
- Augmented reality sun path
- Object shadow casting
- 24-hour time scrubber
- Golden hour and twilight alerts
- Moon and planet tracking
- Seasonal sun path analysis
Read full descriptionHide full description
See where the sun will be, where your shadow will fall, and exactly where the shade lands — at any hour, at any spot on earth. Then keep going: garden planning, fishing and hunting windows, UV, air quality, tides, golden hour, and the night sky. Point your phone and the live compass orients to the world around you. Sun direction and altitude sit right on the dial, your shadow is drawn opposite it at true length, and sunrise and sunset are marked at the exact bearings they cross the horizon — with times corrected for the ridge in front of you, not just the flat math horizon. Drag the time scrubber and watch the whole day play out — perfect for a campsite, a patio, a photo shoot, a garden bed, or the shady side of a trail. SEE THE SHADE IN AUGMENTED REALITY • Point the camera and watch the sun's real path trace across your actual yard • Drop a tree, canopy, umbrella, vehicle, pergola, or solar panel and see its true cast shadow • Play a sunrise-to-sunset time-lapse and watch the shade sweep the scene • Tap any spot to read its hours of direct sun — today, or averaged across the year • Scan the whole yard for a full sun-and-shade map (iPhone Pro models with LiDAR) FOR THE GARDEN • "What grows here" — plants scored against your hardiness zone, soil, and measured sun • Frost-anchored planting windows: start indoors, direct sow, transplant, harvest • Projected harvest date and frost margin before you commit to a seed • Lock in a grow plan and push its reminders to your calendar in one tap • Watering guidance from rainfall, evapotranspiration, and a running soil-water balance • A household planner that sizes a garden to actually feed your family FOR ANGLERS, HUNTERS, AND SURFERS • Best Times windows for trout, bass, big game, birds, small game, and surf • Built from sun and moon position, season, and light at your exact coordinates • Fly hatch charts by region, lures with how to fish them, and a reading-water guide • Knot library with step-by-step instructions and a 200-term field glossary • Tides from NOAA harmonic data, plus buoy wave height, period, and direction • River flow and water temperature wherever there's a gauge nearby FOR PHOTOGRAPHERS AND STARGAZERS • Golden hour, blue hour, civil, nautical, and astronomical twilight, and true dark • Sunset quality scored from the cloud layers overhead before you drive out • Starting exposure for the light you're in, plus light direction and polarizer guidance • Moon phase, rise, set, and bearing; visible planets and an AR planet finder • Milky Way, meteor, and aurora windows, with live Kp and solar activity A WEATHER APP BUILT FOR BEING OUTSIDE • Current, hourly, and 10-day, plus a 7-day strip you build from 23 metrics • UV burn timer tuned to your skin type, with safer windows • Air quality with a likely cause — wildfire smoke, ozone, a winter inversion • Weather alerts, frost warnings, and a Lock Screen rain nowcast where available • Thirty years of local storm history and the months that carry the most risk • A plain-language read on whether today is actually worth going outside for ON YOUR WRIST, LOCK SCREEN, AND HOME SCREEN • Apple Watch app — dial, today, live conditions, and best times — plus complications • Widgets for sun, shadow, moon, UV, and the day ahead • Live Activities for golden hour, rain, UV burn, and your next prime window • Ask Siri for a shade report anywhere ANYWHERE, EVEN OFFLINE • Sun, moon, shadow, planting, and every field guide compute on the device itself • 32,000 cities offline, exact coordinates, dropped pins, saved places carried by iCloud • Any date, past or future — plan an October trip, or compare June to December • Month-by-month daylight hours, sun path, and bearings across the whole year One purchase covers iPhone and Apple Watch. No ads. No accounts. No subscriptions. No tracking. No data collection. Just the sun, your shadow, and a straight answer about the day ahead. Frequent and Responsive updates for feature requests and bug fixes!!
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is price: Compass Retro at Free against Shade Compass's $0.99. Compass Retro also leads on iOS requirement (15.6 vs 18.0). Shade Compass's advantage is in-app purchases (none vs 1) and ads (none vs shown). On rating, review sentiment, ratings volume and update cadence 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
Compass Retro is free to download; Shade Compass costs $0.99 up front. Compass Retro sells 1 one-off in-app purchase. Shade Compass asks for nothing beyond the download.
On the App Store both sit at effectively the same score — 5.0 for Compass Retro against 5.0 for Shade Compass. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 1 and 2 respectively. Written reviews split almost evenly too, at 100% and 100% positive.
Compass Retro ships an update every 8 days, Shade Compass every 10 days. The most recent releases landed on October 11, 2026 and October 10, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Compass Retro | Shade Compass |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free — better | $0.99 |
| Rating | 5.0 (1 ratings) | 5.0 (2 ratings) |
| Positive reviews | 100.0% of reviews | 100.0% of reviews |
| Number of ratings | 1 | 2 — better |
| Update frequency | Every 8 days — better | Every 10 days |
| Ads | Yes | No — better |
| In-app purchases | Yes | No — better |
| Monetization | Free — better | Paid |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod — better | iPhone, Apple Watch |
| Requires iOS | 15.6 — better | 18.0 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 36 MB | 1.2 GB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | akira ohmachi | Ira Seferovich |
Customer experience
Compass Retro
Shade Compass
In-app purchases
Compass Retro
- Remove Ads$1.99
Shade Compass
No in-app purchases









