Comparison

SunNow vs Skyward

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

Head to head
About

SunNow

Features
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# SunNow Product Introduction Have you ever imagined an astronomy model that runs directly on your phone? Without a network connection or cloud computing, you can still know the solar time for your location, when the sun rises, when it sets, and when the moon may be visible. SunNow is exactly that kind of app. It brings the sun, Earth, moon, and your location into one on-device model. Based on latitude, longitude, altitude, date, and time, SunNow calculates sun angle, daylight, twilight, moon phase, and clear-sky radiation locally. You can drag the Earth and moon models to explore how light changes through a day, a month, and a year. In SunNow, time is not just digits on a clock. It becomes the sun's height, the day-night boundary across Earth, the glow before sunrise, the fading light after sunset, and the changing shape of the moon. ## A Sky Inside Your Phone SunNow is not just a weather app or a sunrise lookup tool. It is a local astronomy calculator for daily light, sun, and moon awareness. SunNow uses your current location or a place you select to calculate sun position, local solar time, daylight state, and moon information. You can see whether it is daylight, night, dawn, or dusk, and view sunrise, sunset, and a light curve. These calculations do not depend on the network. With no signal, no mobile data, outdoors, or on a plane, SunNow can still work. ## See Light, Not Just Time We look at time every day, but in real life, light often matters more than the clock. When does the sky begin to brighten? When is the light strongest? How long after sunset can you still see clearly? What phase is the moon in tonight? SunNow turns these questions into something visible. You can check sunrise and sunset, watch the twilight boundary move across Earth, observe clear-sky radiation, and scrub through time. ## Earth, Moon, and Your Location SunNow does not only give you a number. You can drag the Earth model to observe the day-night boundary, switch locations to compare solar states across cities, and save places you care about. The moon is part of the model too. SunNow shows moon phase changes and moon information, helping you see waxing and waning as a continuous process. ## Sunrise and Sunset Alarms For some people, sunrise and sunset are part of a daily rhythm. Regular alarms ring at a fixed clock time, but the sun changes with location and season. SunNow's sunrise and sunset alarms adjust based on your location and date. You can set reminders before sunrise, before sunset, or around specific solar events. For people who live, work, run, travel, photograph, or rest with the sun, this is an alarm that follows the sky. ## Offline, By Design The core features of the current version of SunNow do not require a network connection. Astronomy calculations happen on your device. Your location, saved places, display settings, and alarm rules are stored on your device. The app does not require registration or login, and it does not need to upload your location for its core calculations. You can grant location permission so SunNow can obtain latitude, longitude, and altitude automatically. You can also deny location permission and manually select a place. ## Who SunNow Is For SunNow is for people who care about natural light. It is useful for people living at high latitudes, where daylight length changes dramatically through the year. It helps outdoor workers, early runners, photographers, campers, hikers, commuters, moon watchers, stargazers, and anyone who wants to return their schedule to the sun. If you only want to know when the sun rises today, SunNow can answer that. If you want to understand why the light changes the way it does, SunNow can help you see it. SunNow is an offline astronomy app that uses Earth, the sun, the moon, and your location to show sunrise, sunset, daylight, twilight, moon phases, clear-sky radiation, and solar alarms that adjust with the seasons.

About

Skyward

This app provides detailed weather forecasts for up to 30 days, with longer-range outlooks up to 6 months. It offers clear charts, radar, historical comparisons, and tide information to help users understand weather patterns.

Highlights
  • 30-day detailed forecasts
  • 6-month long-range outlooks
  • Rain radar and weather maps
  • Tide information
  • Historical weather comparisons
  • Customizable weather tiles
  • Smart weather alerts
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Skyward is a powerful weather app for people who want more than just today’s forecast. See detailed weather forecasts for the next 30 days, explore longer-range outlooks up to 6 months ahead, and understand what the weather is doing with clear charts, radar, historical comparisons, tides and useful insights. Skyward goes beyond temperature and rain chance. Follow air pressure, sea temperatures, precipitation, wind, sunshine, air quality, tides and climate trends in a clear and easy-to-read way. Key features include: • Detailed weather forecasts up to 30 days ahead • Long-range weather outlooks up to 6 months • Rain radar and weather maps • Save favourite places and switch between them quickly • High and low tide information • Air pressure graphs and trends • Sea temperature charts • Temperature, precipitation, wind and climate charts • Weather widgets for quick information • Smart weather alerts • Forecast confidence and uncertainty information • See how accurate previous Skyward forecasts were • Compare expected weather with normal conditions • Historical weather comparisons and records • Daily weather highlights and visual summaries • Sunrise, sunset and daylight information • Air quality information • Search weather anywhere in the world • Choose which weather tiles you want to see • Hide weather tiles you don’t need • Arrange Skyward around the information that matters to you • Customise units, language and appearance Understand the forecast Skyward doesn’t just show you numbers. It helps explain what stands out, how reliable a forecast is and how expected conditions compare with what is normal for that time of year. Look further ahead Explore weather trends weeks and even months into the future. Longer-range forecasts naturally become less certain, so Skyward also shows forecast confidence to help you understand how much weight to give them. Follow the tides Check high and low tide information alongside weather, wind and sea conditions. Useful for coastal trips, fishing, boating, beach days and anyone who wants to understand what is happening around the coast. Check past predictions Look back at previous forecasts and see how closely Skyward predicted the weather that actually occurred. Make Skyward your own Skyward can be adapted to the way you use a weather app. Save your favourite places, choose which weather tiles you want to see and hide the information you don’t need. Whether you mainly care about rain, wind, air pressure, sea conditions, tides or long-range forecasts, you can keep the information that matters to you and remove the rest. Your preferences stay remembered, keeping Skyward clean, personal and easy to use. Skyward is available in English, German, Dutch, French, Spanish and Portuguese, with more languages planned. No subscription. No monthly payments. Just one small price for a complete weather app.

Screenshots

SunNow4 screens
Skyward4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is price: SunNow at Free against Skyward's $1.99. SunNow also leads on iOS requirement (14.0 vs 26.0). 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

SunNow is free to download; Skyward costs $1.99 up front. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.

Scorecard2 real differences · 7 level
SunNow versus Skyward: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterSunNowSkyward
PriceFree — better$1.99
Rating—5.0 (1 ratings) — better
Number of ratings—1 — better
Update frequency—Every 5 days
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNoNo
Monetization—Paid
DevicesiPhone, iPad, iPod — betteriPhone, iPad
Requires iOS14.0 — better26.0
Further details — not scored
Size96 MB7 MB
Age rating4+4+
Developernonono LLCAhmed Khelifi

In-app purchases

None

SunNow

No in-app purchases

None

Skyward

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is SunNow free?
SunNow is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Is Skyward free?
Skyward costs $1.99, with no in-app purchases.
Do SunNow or Skyward have ads?
Neither SunNow nor Skyward shows ads.

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