send link to app

AU: The Solar System :: on sale! app for iPhone and iPad


4.1 ( 9361 ratings )
Reference Education
Developer: orb11
0.99 USD
Current version: 1.01, last update: 6 years ago
First release : 26 Mar 2009
App size: 5.44 Mb

AU: The Solar System is a personal space program at your fingertips.

Browse 3D planets and objects with familiar gestures, and view information and imagery from mankind’s many missions: From Mercury to Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Pluto and more.

AU: The Solar System brings a unique perspective and new dimensions to astronomy apps for the iPhone/iPod touch. AU allows you to effortlessly switch between 3D realtime animation, 2D imagery, and text-based information views with a simple, fun, and easy to use interface.

Direct links to Wikipedia, the JPL Planetary Photojournal, and NASA are available for every object. With over 150 internal images of vehicles, missions, and observations, and over 100 internal pages of info, statistics and ephemera from space programs around the world, AU has a breadth and depth of content that makes learning about our solar system entertaining and illuminating.

From the Sun, to the Earth (150 million km, or 1 Astronomical Unit...) we’ve included sights all along the way, and well beyond. Leave the surface of Earth and enter into orbit around the objects that make up our astounding Solar System. View the system from the outside and get a sense for your place in the universe!

GPS applications can only take you so far...

Pros and cons of AU: The Solar System :: on sale! app for iPhone and iPad

AU: The Solar System :: on sale! app good for

Great app! One suggestion for an update... right now you can scroll left or right through the planets while in the 3d view, which is great... but Id also like to scroll through them while on an info panel. So say Im looking up the composition of Earths core and atmosphere, scrolling left would take me to Venuss composition page or scrolling right would take me to Mars composition. Anyway, great job on this!
This is an excellent database of information about the planets, however some more polish would be nice. For example, the scrolling is counter intuitive because it works in the opposite way that it usually does on the iPhone/iPod Touch. More in depth information about satellites and missions would be excellent. That, along with some extra pizzazz would make this five stars.

Some bad moments

I thought there would at least be an animation of the moon rotating the earth but it as just the earth and other planets spinning. Bugs in the user interface too. Not worth the time with the many better choices in the app store.