Of course, none of these will be Papers for viewing journal PDFs, but still could be useful. It seems that File Magnet and Datacase both get A- scores for Macs. FileMagnet doesn’t work on Windows, and Datacase gets a B+ on Windows. However, since Mac users are the ones reading this site, the Windows score or compatibility shouldn’t matter too much.

Hmm, this is disappointing. The author of star-map says, in regards to controlling telescopes,

Do you plan to control telescopes with Starmap? This is technically possible to control telescope mounts with Starmap. I have made some successful tests through wifi (Skywatcher EQ6). However, following the agreement with Apple, no public application controlling mechanical devices will be released.

This is a tad surprising, since according to the NY Times this morning:

Instead, [the iFund venture capital fund] is backing, among others, iControl Networks, which is creating an application to let homeowners turn off their lights and alarms at home, as well as monitor security cameras, via their iPhones.

Indeed, iControl is listed in the App store. Perhaps turning off a light is different than moving around telescopes? I can’t say I quite get it.

Update There is at least one other similar program – iAstronomica. This one is $20, rather than $12 for Starmap. Be advised that apparently once you click “buy” that’s it – no warning, no shopping cart – so click carefully.

Update 2 The popular Clear Sky Clock also has an iPhone App version. It occurs to me that, astronomy being something that occurs in remote parts of the country, it may be hard to get online out there. the aforementioned programs carry their data with them, but the Clear Sky Clock will clearly need either EDGE/3G/WiFi to be of use.

Update 3 Indeed, as my commenter notes, there are other apps in this category as well. Uranus (iTunes Link), and GoSkyWatch Planetarium (iTunes Link). I think the app store needs some sort of demo/shareware option, where the program will work for a week or so at least. Hopefully someone will review all of these.

1. They determine you’re on an iPhone via user-agent strings
2. You can reset the 15 minutes by deleting boingo cookies

So, it’s fairly easy to get WiFi indefinitely on a Mac or your iPhone. On the iPhone just clear cookies (though that’s a pain because you can’t easily select which cookies to delete, so you may lose automatic logins to other sites too)

On a Mac you use the Safari “Develop” menu to pretend you’re Mobile Safari, watch the ad, then you’re in business. Once the 15 minutes are up, open up Safari’s Security preferences, show cookies, and select only boingo ones (easy to do with the live search text field), and then load a page at you’re back at the initial trial offer.

Who knows how long this will work or if they won’t shut the whole thing down when they read this post but it’s a neat trick and if AAS members read or subscribe to RSS from this site, you can try it out at the airport.