SkySafari 6 Pro is already the best astronomy app I've heard of, by far. I was wondering if SkySafari 7 is in development for either iOS or Android? Are there plans for this? Historically, iOS has received a major upgrade in December every other year with Android to follow 4-8 months later. I understand that Bill retiring probably has a lot to do with there being no SS7 released this year, but given that development of a major upgrade takes at least a year, I would hope that it's been discussed and is being started? Here's a list of potential features I've either come up with or found on the forums that could be considered:
Major selling points
- Socialization of the app; opt in model; including who's viewing, top viewed (currently, last 7, last 30, last 365), chat/messaging, up-voting observation notes, etc.etc. etc.
- Better localization - ability to change languages within the application, perhaps a wiki model for editing/improving the actual translations
- Ability to sketch and share observations within the application
- Ability to record audio observations within the application (likely not shared)
- Inclusion of observing notes from well known amateur astronomers for NGC/IC/UGC
Secondary features
- More accurate visual magnitudes for the NGC database (Wolfgang data)
- Ability to rotate the field by degrees to perfectly match the eyepiece view
- Upgrade DSS images to the full color Palomar and AAO Digitized Sky Survey II (DSS2)
- Ability to create user-defined objects in SkySafari
- Fixed timing on object notifications for Android
- Object-specific notification options
- Support for more telescopes for telescope control
- Updated in-app wiki information for popular objects, including adding more
- Ability to add more specialized equipment, such as filters and paracorr
I would hope that this list would be enough to justify hiring a full-time developer, especially with an even greater world-wide audience with localization and socialization, to develop this and keep this wonderful product moving forward. Hopefully others will chime in below in things I've missed. I'm happy to post this same message over on Cloudy Nights to get the input there from the community. I'm looking forward to the opportunity to purchase SkySafari 7 Pro and the in-app expansions!
Seth Meyers Keiron Smith Tim DeBenedictis Dave Whipps Ros Hartigan Jake Bentley Ousley Dean
