SkystaIn one sentence
Skysta tells you when tonight’s light happens, how good it’s likely to be, and where to stand. Then it opens its camera only while the light is real.
In one paragraph
Skysta is an iPhone app for people who don’t want to miss the sky. It works out sunrise and sunset to the minute for exactly where you stand. It scores the coming light from the real forecast at the minute the colour peaks, worked out on the phone, one place at a time, and never invented: no forecast means no number, and a reading built on missing data says which part was missing. It keeps a list of public places with open horizons, every one of them read by a person first, each with its own light times and a leave-by time. Its shutter only works while a window is live, and there is no way to bring in a sky from the camera roll. Sharing a sky sends a link that opens the app on that exact photograph rather than the picture itself. There are no likes, no comments, no followers and no streaks, and nothing in the app is triggered by the score: the clock decides when Skysta speaks, and every word it says is a time, never the number. It’s built around a simple respect: the app asks for a few minutes of your evening, and makes them the right ones.
Facts
- Free on iPhone (iOS 18 or later). Nothing to buy inside it, and no ads
- Made by Cy Liassides, Utah, USA
- Sky Score worked out on the phone, one place at a time. A score is never made up. No notification is sent because of one, and no notification carries one: every reminder Skysta sends is a clock time
- Capture window: golden hour to last light in the evening, first light to the end of golden hour in the morning. Nothing else opens the camera, and no sky can be brought in from the camera roll
- Every trusted spot is researched and approved by a person before it appears, and a spot whose road shuts for the season leaves the app until it opens again. The list is concentrated in the west today; light times and scores work anywhere
- The map pin is exact and chosen per photograph: it starts off for everybody, one tap either way, never remembered between posts. Every shared sky also carries a coarse grid cell, about 5.5 km, of where it was taken, used only to sort it into nearby Local feeds and never drawn on the map. A sky taken at a trusted spot carries that spot’s public name, which the photographer can remove before sharing, or afterwards
- A shared sky is sent as a link that opens in the app. The photograph is never shown on a web page
- A shared sky sits in the feed for three days, then stays on its author’s profile for good
- Email sign-ups verify the address before they can get in
- No likes, comments, followers or streaks
- Diagnostics and product analytics are off until the reader turns them on, and carry no account identifier and no exact position. No ad libraries, no third-party trackers, and no tracking permission prompt, because there is nothing to ask for
- Reminders are scheduled by the phone. Our own server sends one thing, the Lock Screen card, and nothing about the forecast goes with it
- This website sets no cookies and runs no analytics. The only JavaScript it ships is its own, for the Sky Score and the map
Assets
The app icon: 512px PNG. The screenshots on the home page may be reused. Email for the originals or a full set. Please don’t recolour the icon or set the wordmark in another face.
The name
Sky, plus the -sta of barista or fashionista. Someone who takes the everyday thing seriously. Capital S, one word.
Where it is
Not on the App Store yet. When it’s approved, the link will be on the home page and this line will say so. Until then, please don’t print a date we haven’t got.