Something for Western Astrologers
Posted by Brian Conrad at 4/27/2010 1:07 PM 
Categories: news
Tags: tropical astrology western zodiac glyphs houses placidus cusps android
Categories: news
Tags: tropical astrology western zodiac glyphs houses placidus cusps android
Some of you may have noticed I recently added a western astrology program "Tropical Skies Astrology" to the product lineup. It was launched a couple weeks ago the Android Market and just recently announced here. I first wanted to see how it did with putting it on the Market without any fanfare here. It has been doing well probably because the western astrology market is 15-20 times larger than the Jyotish market.I created the program because no one had yet to release a western astrology program for Android and I had libraries ready for use. It is a fairly basic tropical astrology program providing the four most popular house systems and displays the major aspects. I am planning an update which will list the minor aspects too. The program also has a built-in atlas and you can also save locations not found in the atlas to a personal atlas (this is also available in Jyotish Tools for Android). I can also use Google Maps for locations as well as GPS .
Uranus and Neptune calculations are both VSOP87 calculations as are the other planets except Pluto. Unfortunately Pluto was never added to VSOP87 and may never be since astronomers no longer consider it a planet. Therefore the current calculations may be a little rough as there is not much out there for Pluto and because it was only discovered in 1930 hence not observed for very long and has a highly erratic orbit so even the best calculation engines may not be all that accurate especially for any future longitudes. I am seeking to improve those terms so they match as closely as possible to engines like the JPL ephemeris.
(Android Market Barcode for Tropical Skies Astrology)
iPhone and iPad
I still keep getting numerous requests for iPhone and iPad versions. Unfortunately Apple puts too many obstacles in the way to invest any time and money on such products. They are frankly a risky investment and by already publishing for Android would probably get rejected. Developers with Macs can gamble with that market.
Brian: I was going to get your Western Skies Astrology for my Nexus-1(android market) and saw someone's comment: "Planetary positions are pretty close but house cusps are way off, especially the Ascendant. Needs more work, but good initial effort." Can you please respond? to my email?
That person may have entered data wrong. The program is very accurate and was just updated so that Pluto is very accurate too. I did a number of comparisons with charts from AstroDataBank when testing.
Often people probably used to the way some other programs work get longitude and latitude reversed or the wrong time zone. Those can mess up a horoscope. Unfortunately many apps on the Android Market get bad reviews often by people who don't understand the app. Also Google doesn't let the developers reply to comments on the Market and many of us have expressed out discontent about that. Here is a positive review from a knowledgeable astrologer:
http://www.androlib.com/forum/topic-TROPICAL-SKIES-ASTROLOGY-GREAT-PROGRAM_jqit.aspx
I've just downloaded it and can confirm that the house positions are indeed accurate
Have you any plans to extend this programme to include transits, progressions, synastry and composite charts? Would be lovely to have a complete astrology programme (like Astro Win CE on Windows Mobile) on my new Android phone - thanks...
I don't think you'd want a full desktop like program on a phone. The screens are too small and there isn't much memory to support large programs. That's why there are "apps" on phones which are small basic programs. Instead of extending Jyotish Tools or Tropical Skies the better idea is to create extension apps that work with these programs. For instance, perhaps an ephemeris app. On Android it is possible to share data files between apps from the same company or author so this would be a natural.
For much of this to happen though the astrology market on Android must grow substantially about 1000%. Right now it is only the province of early adopters and I would estimate it may take two years to develop a much larger market. Some of this will happen as inexpensive Android mostly non-phone devices appear as early as this fall (they were shown at recent CE shows). Telecoms also have to rethink their packages as many don't want to pay the extra $30 for the data access and there are people like me who barely use the phone side but access a lot of data. In the latter case we're paying too much for the phone access. And of course all this is different in other countries where you have to buy the phone up front rather than it being subsidized by 2 year telecom contracts.
Just a follow up as those inexpensive Android devices at less than $100 are already appearing on web sites such as this one from Hong Kong:
http://www.dealextreme.com/search.dx/search.android
I can't vouch for these devices so buyer beware. Take it more of an indicator of what is happening and perhaps some of these may begin to appear in your local electronics shops. One thing I would suggest for the best display is to get one at least 480x320 resolution. Since most of the Android devices emerging worldwide over the past year only had version 1.5 of the Android OS I stuck to that version for compatibility reasons even though 1.6 allowed for multiple display layouts. I note that most of the devices shown at the site are 1.6.
I would be all over this if there was an option to use the sidereal zodiac. Seems like it would be simple to use since all of the other apps from the creator use the sidereal zodiac.
Thanks! Sounds like a great feature for the "Pro" version. Fagan ayanamsha I assume?
Yes, Fagan-Bradley for a Western Sidereal version. That would be great. I've been wanting something like that for some time now. I do plan to investigate the Vedic astrological offerings once I learn more about it, but my background is Fagan.
When will the Fagan-Bradley sidereal zodiac option and your "Pro" version be available? I would love to use that option on an Android smartphone like the upcoming HTC Desire HD. Many thanks and I look forward to your reply.
I've started work on an update which will include the sidereal option. This is not a pro version but just a few extra features I've selected because they are somewhat easy to implement. It may be out sometime this week.
The first thing I implemented was the same menu item I put on the splash screen to the latest Jyotish Tools for Android as people thought there were no Help files or even settings on that program because they were looking for it on the splash page but the menus are on the screens where they have an effect. All the splash screen menu does is pop up a message dialog where those menus are located. For instance someone asked why I didn't included Google Maps and they had apparently not tried the Menu button on the data entry screen to see it not only brings up Google Maps but also displays the longitude and latitude of the location and will insert them in the chart data when Maps is exited by pressing Set. Jyotish Tools as well as Quick Jyotish also do this.
In addition to the sidereal option I am making available the minor aspects as an option. I want to fix the drawing algorithm though so that they are layered from the minor to the major which is what most programs do.
FYI, for folks leaving comments I have to moderate them or spammers would put a lot of junk here. I am always deleting comments by people who are hoping that their web site (having absolutely nothing to do with astrology) will be displayed. To them I say don't waste your time and especially mine.
Thank you Brian for your answer to my sidereal zodiac question. With the availability of the new Dell Streak which I would love to own, would you consider developing a full astrology program like Paul mentioned that would enable me to create and save client files? Thanks for your time and attention.
I'm not sure you would actually want a full program on a phone or even a 5" tablet. It's hard to put a decent display on a small phone screen and a 7" to 10" tablet might be better suited. And I am not a western astrologer but practice vedic astrology. I know enough to put out a simple program like Tropical Skies and even add a few more features. You might ask the makers of full programs for something since they should already have the code for it. Even my vedic astrology programs are just built around the Systems Approach and do not contain all the features of more expensive full programs.
BTW, I just added a feature that saves the chart as a PNG picture file which can be emailed or even printed.
Thank you for clarifying. I appreciate how daunting it must be and am grateful that you are offering what you have put together. I have one more question: does your Sidereal zodiac option include the choice of custom ayanamshas? I look forward to your reply.
No, not for a $4.95 app. Just the Fagen-Bradley.
I paid for Jyotish tools android and am not getting Indian atlas. I live in India and i don need World atlas... in the product description it shows Indian atlas included but not found....please help
Though I replied to this customers email for the benefit of others here the answer is under Settings (when Jyotish Tools is running) you can select the Atlas you want to use as well as chart style, ayanamsha, etc. There is an Indian Atlas available (the same one that is available in the Windows version) and of course with India there is no DST. I'm aware that people are somewhat new to Android phones and the paradigm is instead of putting a lot help information which research shows people seldom read anyway to use standard paradigms that all the phone apps use. The idea is to "explore" your phone when you get it to learn to use (they're hard to break just exploring the apps anyway). All the phones and the tablet devices will have a MENU "button" (just a press sensitive area on most devices). With no apps running that will give you a menu including Settings for the phone (turning GPS on and off etc). Then each app can also respond with to that button with their own menu and settings.
Some people did not realize this or expected a menu on the splash screen which allows the user to select between 4 different functions: New Horoscope, Load Horoscope, Delete Horoscopes and Prasna. I added a Menu in the last version which pops up a dialog that tells you the actual menus are on the display screen (where the settings make sense) and the chart entry screen where the menu item allows access to Google Maps for coordinates.
Those users who explored their phone and the app quickly found the settings and extra features. The same is true for Tropical Skies.
On another note which I want to address more fully in a blog item is problems some users are finding with GPS response. This seemed to work better with Android 1.5 than with Android 2.1. Though I am no expert on the external workings of GPS I am beginning to wonder if due to the rapid increase in use of these phones that response time may be a little slower than before. I am looking into fixes for this as are other Android developers. Some of you may have noticed even with Google's own Maps app it will take a while to find your current location (sometimes up to a minute). It will often attempt to find the location via using around 5 satellites which is the reason for the delay.
Will the western version work on a Sony Ericsson Experia X10 mini with a screen resolution of 320×240 pixels? If not, is it possible to make it work? I will be happy to test it if needed.
I would not recommend any Android phone or device with less than a 320x480 display. The Xperia will probably scale down the graphics to 320x240 but they may be difficult to read. The larger displays (bigger than 480) scale up which is fine for astrology displays. All my current programs have scalable graphics.
Thanks for your reply. I understand that the resolution will be a bit low. I would like to try it on my SE X10 mini anyway, but probably due to the resolution it is not available in the Market and as far as I can see also not through SWREG. Can this be changed?
I'm going to put a Tropical Skies PNG file as a download on the Tropical Skies section of the Android page. You can download it and see how it looks on your phone.
Paid apps on the Android Market aren't available in some countries such as India. That's why I added the SWReg option for Jyotish Tools for Android. Unfortunately that is not working out too well because unlike users in the US people swap SIM cards to get different services. In the US most people buy the phone for something like $99 and a two year contract which subsidizes the rest of the cost of the phone. And the US telecoms provide everything people want so they don't need to swap SIM cards. When you swap the SIM card the phone ID changes and the program won't work with that SIM card installed. So I will be looking into other methods of registration when I have more time. That might include a SWReg version of Tropical Skies.
I still want to buy the western version for my Sony Ericsson Experia X10 mini, but it is not available in the market, probably due to the low screen resolution. I even tried using MarketEnabler, but the location of the Market doesn't seem to be the problem. Maybe solutions can be found in this article: http://mathw.se/supporting-the-htc-tattoo-and-other-low-resolution-android-devices-2
Do you see any paid apps in the Android Market? Most likely you are in a country which does not yet have paid apps available on the Android Market. Resolution is not the problem because the program runs fine in a QVGA screen. Google has a new licensing program which may allow for more countries to get paid apps on the Android Market.
Sorry for the late response, but I was traveling. I managed to buy the western version, for some reason it was available at once. Thanks for your support!
A lot of countries got paid apps on Thursday the 7th. They are:
Argentina, Belgium, Brazil, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, Hong Kong, India, Ireland, Israel, Mexico, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Russia, Singapore, Sweden, and Taiwan.
So that is why you were able to finally see the app.