Contact SkyORB 2021 Astronomy in AR Support

There are so many areas for improvement with this app it is not possible to list them all, and I do not suggest you use it nor upgrade to their premium product; I have not upgraded and have no plans to. I suggest you try Pocket Universe instead. For starters, the interface is clunky and unwieldly. Function icons are not clearly labeled, and occupy valuable display space on my phone. I should be able to hide these icons to make full use of my phone's display or they should auto-hide themselves in some off-screen fashion. To continue, pop-up information does not clear itself and gets in the way of the skyview display. The app continued to display data about Mars when I had navigated away from that planet's view in the "orbital" view. The app also does not remove information that is no longer relevant to the star/planet/satellite object that I am no longer looking at through the app. There is no obvious control that actually removes these info pop-ups; the control only resizes the pop-ups but does not remove them. Additionally, the stars all have "lens-flare" or "starburst" effects that won't turn off. A control needs to be plainly and obviously named that can disable this effect. Finally, the "night vision" mode should be just that: everything should be low-HSV color or red. When this option is turned on, the app does not use an appropriate color scheme. The list goes on, but these are some of the most obvious items that can be improved upon.

This app reminds me of the first-generation planetarium programs we all used 20 years ago. It is essentially an electronic sky atlas with one or two rudimentary features added. Major weaknesses include: Only displays the name of the object at screen center, so you must do a lot of zooming in and out to ID an object of interest. User should be able to touch the screen and get the ID for the object closest to the center of the area touched add confirmatory tic marks on the display. This app only supports azimuth (compass direction) automatic tracking, and it doesn't do that very well. The Compass app works perfectly at my location, but this app updates azimuth unpredictably and often is off by >30 degrees. Mode switching is frustrating. Sometimes you can switch directly between modes, but often you must return to the home screen and switch from there. This app is more likely to frustrate than foster interest in astronomy. There are far better alternatives in the app store.

I just wanted something to point at the sky and figure out what I was looking at. At one point this app could do that. Now the interface is so complicated that it is a beast to use. Plus, there is no useful documentation. Half the time, it freezes up on me when I want to use it most. Here is the other thing: I spent good money on this app. But then they got rid of the old "free" version and renamed this paid version as the free one. Then they came out with a new paid version. So even though they have my money, I now get constant nags to give them more for a piece of junk. For shame!