Comparison

Shade Compass vs Ham Listening

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

Head to head
About

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.

Highlights
  • 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
Features
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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!!

About

Ham Listening

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Ham Listening turns your phone into a window on the world's radio. Browse hundreds of public KiwiSDR receivers around the globe and tune the shortwave and amateur bands live — no radio, no antenna and no licence required. LISTEN ANYWHERE • Browse hundreds of public KiwiSDR receivers hosted by operators worldwide • Pick a receiver by country, then by source — or let "Best available" jump to the strongest open one • Receivers near your grid are sorted first once you enter your locator • Hear CW, SSB and distant broadcasters, and find out how the bands really sound from another continent • A bundled receiver list means the picker still works when the live directory is having a bad day TUNE LIKE A RADIO • A live waterfall with a fixed centre cursor — drag the waterfall under it to tune, pinch to zoom, tap to jump • AM, LSB, USB, CW and NFM demodulation, each with the right passband applied for you • A band-plan overlay showing what each part of the band is for, in IARU Region 1, 2 or 3 • An S-meter and a live audio-FFT spectrum for receivers that offer no wideband waterfall • Save frequency marks and jump straight back to them • Direct frequency entry, step keys and adjustable volume BUILT TO KEEP PLAYING • Audio keeps running when you switch apps or lock the screen • Reconnects gracefully on its own when a stream drops • Works over Wi-Fi or mobile data, and runs on modest data using compressed audio • Remembers the receiver, frequency and mode you were last on • Light and dark themes, adjustable font size, weekly tips and in-app version history • No account, no sign-up, no ads, no analytics and no tracking PERFECT FOR • Shortwave listeners and DXers with no antenna space • Licensed operators checking how their band sounds from the other side of the world • Anyone curious about radio who does not own a receiver • Travellers, apartment dwellers and anyone in a high-noise location • Teachers and clubs demonstrating HF propagation live PRIVACY • Your callsign, grid and email are stored only on your device. • No account, no sign-up, no ads, no analytics SDKs, no advertising ID and no tracking of any kind. 73 de A41UX Yousuf AL Balushi — Unixeer, Oman

Screenshots

Shade Compass4 screens
Ham Listening4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is price: Ham Listening at Free against Shade Compass's $0.99. Ham Listening also leads on iOS requirement (15.0 vs 18.0). Shade Compass's advantage is update cadence (every 10 days vs every 3 weeks). On ads, in-app purchases and device support 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

Ham Listening is free to download; Shade Compass costs $0.99 up front. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Shade Compass ships an update every 10 days, Ham Listening every 3 weeks. The most recent releases landed on October 10, 2026 and October 14, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard3 real differences · 7 level
Shade Compass versus Ham Listening: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterShade CompassHam Listening
Price$0.99Free — better
Rating5.0 (2 ratings) — better—
Positive reviews100.0% of reviews—
Number of ratings2 — better—
Update frequencyEvery 10 days — betterEvery 3 weeks
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNoNo
MonetizationPaid—
DevicesiPhone, Apple WatchiPhone, iPad, iPod — better
Requires iOS18.015.0 — better
Further details — not scored
Size1.2 GB22 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperIra SeferovichYousif AL Balushi

In-app purchases

None

Shade Compass

No in-app purchases

None

Ham Listening

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is Shade Compass free?
Shade Compass costs $0.99, with no in-app purchases.
Is Ham Listening free?
Ham Listening is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Do Shade Compass or Ham Listening have ads?
Neither Shade Compass nor Ham Listening shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Shade Compass or Ham Listening?
Shade Compass ships an update every 10 days, and Ham Listening every 3 weeks. Most recently, Shade Compass was updated on October 10, 2026 and Ham Listening on October 14, 2026.

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