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Today’s Apps
- SkySafari 3 (Star and constellation information app)
- RSS (Basic RSS news feeder)
- Qvoid Intro (Rollins cube puzzle game)
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About iOS Apps of the Day
iOS has over 600,000 apps. With so many apps out there, app discovery (aka finding new and useful apps) is extremely difficult. With our iOS Apps of the Day initiative, dotTech aims to change that. Everyday we post three apps, allowing our readers to discover new apps, daily. Enjoy! [Subscribe to our iOS section to never miss an article: RSS Feed | E-mail]
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Apps for May 22, 2012
SkySafari 3
SkySafari 3 shows you the stars and even star clusters as well as showing you what is in your general area. This version includes 46,000 stars and 220 star clusters. It even uses the NASA spacecraft imagery by showing you the solar system’s major planets which also includes the best-known asteroids and comets. This app will also show you what was in the sky from one hundred years in the past or show you one hundred years in the future. This also has hundreds of images from NASA space missions, the Hubble Space Telescope, and the world’s foremost astro-photographers. If the device has a compass, it will show you what the constellations are just by lining it up with the night sky. This also has a night button so that you can preserve your dark adaptation as you are exploring the sky. There is a Time Flow feature that lets you animate the night sky using simple VCR controls where you can follow the motion of the stars and planets as SkySafari compresses days, months, and years into a few seconds. Also this includes SkyWeek which is the mobile version of Sky & Telescope Magazine’s super-popular “Sky at a Glance” column.
There are two other versions you can buy to add more stars and constellations. The Plus version includes 2.5 million stars and 31,000 deep sky objects which has the entire NGC/IC catalog. The Pro version includes over 15.3 million stars from the Hubble Guide Star catalog, plus 740,000 galaxies down to 18th magnitude, and over 580,000 solar system objects. These apps would be great for any astronomy enthusiast.
Price: $2.99; Plus: $14.99; Pro: $39.99
Version discovered: 3.5
Requires: iPhone/iPod Touch/iPad; iOS 4.0 and up
Download size: 49.3 MB; Plus: 199 MB; Pro: 584 MB
RSS
RSS is a basic news feed reader. All you need to do is add the feed to the app, and you will get the news feeds from that web site that you can read easily. Unfortunately, it appears that this app doesn’t include HTML so you won’t be able to click to a web site and open your Safari program. If all you are reading is just plain ordinary text, then this is a great news reading app that will fill that need. You will note that there are some bad reviews, but after testing this app it isn’t as bad as what the reviewers said apart from the text only views.
Price: Free
Version discovered: 1.04
Requires: iPhone/iPod Touch/iPad; iOS 3.0 and up
Download size: 0.3 MB
Qvoid Intro
Qvoid Intro is a cube game that all you need to do is pick up a color and match it with the other color. The trick of this is that you need to move and land the cube in the exact same spot on the cube when you picked up the first one. The least amount of moves you make the better your star score gets. Qvoid Intro includes 40 different puzzles while the full Qvoid app includes 120 puzzles.
Price: Free; Full: $0.99
Version discovered: 1.5.1; Full: 1.5.5
Requires: iPhone/iPod Touch/iPad; iOS 3.2 and up
Download size: 8.6 MB; Full: 10.7 MB
dotTechies: We have tested all the apps listed above. However, iOS Apps of the Day articles are not intended as “reviews” but rather as “heads-up” to help you discover new apps. Always use your best judgement when downloading apps, such as trying trial/free versions before purchasing paid apps, if applicable.
