Distant Suns 5
63
Quality Score
Solid
Distant Suns 5
Low confidence
✍️ bumetric analysis
“
Distant Suns 5 is an iOS app from Mike Smithwick in the News category, currently rated 4.3★ across 96 ratings. Initial signal reads as largely positive sentiment, users highlighting consistency and feature depth.
Quality Score is 63: Solid (established niche player). For a News app, that means established niche player. The full BU Investment Matrix below scores 8 dimensions including monetisation, growth, and operational risk.
Track changes month-over-month in the Performance section below: live snapshot history and revenue forecast included.
💰 Monthly revenue · now vs forecast
● Right now
$1.9K
per month
→
12-mo forecast
$1.6K – $5.9K
per month
→
24-mo forecast
$1.5K – $13.7K
per month
INDIE tierFREE
💡 Grow this revenue
Free AI audit of this app’s store listing
- Title & subtitle keyword fit
- Description hook & conversion structure
- Screenshots, ratings, reviews strategy
Typical impact: +2-5× organic installs
📊 Performance Tracking LIVE
Loading…
Rating
—
Reviews
—
Forecast Revenue / mo
—
Snapshots tracked
0
since first record
ONE-TIME · BUILD
💰 Estimated build cost
$110K
↳ What it cost to build · not monthly revenue
Likely range $80K – $150K
$25K · MVP floor
$100K · indie scale
$500K+ · studio build
📈
Pays back in ~4 months at current MRR
Synthetic estimate. Inputs: category complexity, file size, screen count, monetization layer, platform reach, age × team-size proxy. Calibrated against 2024-2026 indie-agency rate surveys. Full math + source list on /methodology.
Where the money goes
| 🧱 MVP baseline (design + 1-store ship) | +$28K |
| 📱 5 unique screens × $4.5K | +$22K |
| 📦 Asset bundle (815 MB) | +$40K |
| ⚙ News complexity ×1.20 | +$18K |
Total estimate
$110K
ONE-TIME · EXIT VALUE
💵 Estimated acquisition value
$375K
↳ What it would sell for · not monthly revenue
Marketplace range $275K – $475K · 13× MRR multiple
💸
~3.4× return on build cost
Synthetic estimate. Multiple band derived from ad-supported + age, rating quality, category demand, and user-base maturity. Calibrated against 2024-2026 indie-app-marketplace closed-deal medians. Full math + comparable deal list on /methodology.
How the multiple was built
| 📺 Ad-supported base | 15× MRR |
| 🏷 News category multiple | -5% |
| ⭐ Small user base (<1K ratings) | -8% |
Final multiple
13× MRR
🔬
How we forecast this revenue
MEDIUM CONFIDENCEBaseline
$1.9K/mo · ML-estimated from 234 triggers
Growth rate
+6.0% MoM · INDIE tier baseline (compound monthly)
Direction
Headwinds: rating drift may slow acquisition, review-mined risks present
6 months
$1.6K – $3.7K
12 months
$1.6K – $5.9K
24 months
$1.5K – $13.7K
Compound growth at +6.0% MoM (tier baseline for INDIE). Range widens with horizon — typical noise band ±40% at 6mo.. Ranges widen with horizon — distant futures carry more uncertainty.
📊
BU Investment Matrix
Pre-traction · 31/100INDIE TIERFREE (NO MONETIZATION)limited signalGrowth Velocity
5.0
Founder Strength
5.5
Product Quality
1.9
Revenue Strength
3.3
Monetization Maturity
0.5
Defensibility
4.5
Market Position
2.0
Operational Safety
2.1
- 💰 Revenue: Modest — $753 - $4712/mo · INDIE tier · medium confidence, trajectory unclear.
- ⭐ Quality: 4.29★ across 96 reviews — weak — significant quality concerns.
- 📍 Market: Not yet charting in any of the 9 monitored markets.
- 📈 Growth: ⚠ last update 515d ago — possibly dormant.
- ⚠️ Risk: High — bug mentions above category norm, rating drift -1.19 ★ (recent 50 vs lifetime), dormant (515d since update).
🎯 For competitors: Vulnerable. Quality drift + slow updates create a clear opening for a fresh competitor with active dev cadence.
💵 For acquirers: Estimated asking range 12-22× monthly = $22K-$41K. Portfolio play ($28K/mo combined) commands premium. Discount applied for operational risk..
Composite of 8 dimensions computed deterministically from public signals — no LLM, every score traces back to a measurable input. Default weights shown; "compete" / "acquire" / "invest" lenses re-weight without re-fetching.
Range:
💰 Forecast Revenue / mo
MODELRevenue forecast computed from BU's 234 trigger model on each snapshot. Calibrated against ground-truth from 58 verified-revenue apps.
🔬Forecast Breakdown — Why This Estimate?Top 10 of 10 triggers
Our ML model uses 200+ signals from public data. These are the most influential for this app:
| Paid app ($0.00)METRIC | +$2,800 | |
| worth every pennyREVIEW | +$2,000 | |
| bugsREVIEW | −$1,800 | |
| 5 starREVIEW | +$1,800 | |
| excellent appREVIEW | +$1,500 | |
| Mature app (16y old)METRIC | +$1,500 | |
| highly recommendREVIEW | +$1,400 | |
| Good rating (4.3★)METRIC | +$800 | |
| Single-language (English only)METRIC | −$400 | |
| Pre-traction phase (96 ratings)METRIC | −$300 |
METRIC = structural app data · REVIEW = mined from user reviews · ✓ VERIFIED = Stripe-verified anchor (TrustMRR)
📈 Reviews Growth
LIVECumulative review count from first BU snapshot. Each point = a tracked update.
⭐ Rating Trend
LIVEAverage rating evolution. Updates with each new review batch.
🆕 What's New · v5.0.6
- UI tweaks
- Addition of musical tracks
- Addition of musical tracks
Profile & Insights
Everything we know — and don't — about this app and its company.
Identification
- App name
- Distant Suns 5
- Developer
- Mike Smithwick
- Bundle ID
- com.distantsuns.distantsunsipad
- App Store URL
- Open in App Store
- Category
- News
- Content rating
- 4+
- Languages
- EN
Company
- Website
- Not found
- Tagline
- YouTube
- Description
- Auf YouTube findest du die angesagtesten Videos und Tracks. Außerdem kannst du eigene Inhalte hochladen und mit Freunden oder gleich der ganzen Welt teilen.
- Founded
- Not found
- HQ / Address
- Not found
- Employees
- Not found
- Logo
- Available
Revenue
- Verified revenue / mo
- Not found
- AI revenue estimate / mo
- Not found
- AI annual estimate
- Not found
- ML model estimate / mo
- $28.2K/mo
- Top-grossing rank
- Outside top 100 in US News
- All-time revenue
- Not found
- Pricing
- Not found
Founder
Founder data not yet collected for this app.
Funding
Funding data not yet collected for this app.
Press & Links
Press & Links data not yet collected for this app.
Contacts & Socials
- Socials
- youtube youtube.com/about
- Not found
- Phone
- Not found
- Contact page
- youtu.be/t/contact_us
- About page
- Not found
⭐Recent App Store Reviews49 latest · avg 3.59★ · 49.0% 5★ · 20.4% 1★
5★24 (49%)
4★6 (12%)
3★4 (8%)
2★5 (10%)
1★10 (20%)
+7 ratings/week
Praise: great ×16 best ×9 love ×5 favorite ×4 awesome ×4Complaints: crash ×8 bug ×1 refund ×1
Top positive
★★★★★ Still my Favorite
I’ve been using Distant Suns since the Amiga days. Still my go-to app for star gazing.…
★★★★★ What happened to this app?
I haven’t used it in a while, now I updated it and it’s all messed up. It insists I sign into iCloud (which I am) but doesn’t recognize it. The sky field is too dim to see what’s going on, the finder is too imprecise that it keeps selecti…
Top negative
★☆☆☆☆ Now it just crashes.
I have owned Distant Suns apps for many, many years. It used to be really awesome. In recent years I have had several problems with Distant Suns Max (Now Distant Suns 5, I guess). I have tried to contact the developer but never gotten a rep…
★☆☆☆☆ New phone
Heard about this app from a friend and bought it immediately. I can only get it to work on my iPhone four. Will not work with my iPhone 11 🤷🏻♀️…
📈Ratings growth96 ratings+-64% lifetimeShow 3-year history estimate ▾
Tracked (59 weeks) Pre-tracking estimate (36 weeks) · model-based, ±5% noise · anchored to release date and current value
🌍Geographic ReachNot ranked
This app is currently outside the top 100 grossing in all 9 countries we monitor (US, UK, DE, FR, JP, CA, AU, BR, IN). Niche or new apps often launch this way — popularity rankings appear once daily revenue clears the regional threshold.
💰Pricing History$0.00 → $2.99 (+0%)
Profile is built from iTunes Lookup + developer site scrape + ML revenue model. Empty fields show "Not found" — additional sources (Crunchbase, X, IndieHackers, Acquire.com) coming.
📝 About this app
Distant Suns: The night sky, reimagined.
2013 finalist in the Family category of TabTimes' best tablet app contest;
"I am putting together some mobile astronomy apps for our local "Sky's the Limit" Observatory in Twentynine Palms, CA. I have been searching for something as good as, or better than, Distant Suns. Short answer: I have not found it yet. ...nothing portrays the night sky as well as Distant Suns.
Distant Suns has been your personal guide to the cosmos since 1985. First on the desktop, now right in your hands. While others play games, you can travel to the stars.… View full description on the official store →
2013 finalist in the Family category of TabTimes' best tablet app contest;
"I am putting together some mobile astronomy apps for our local "Sky's the Limit" Observatory in Twentynine Palms, CA. I have been searching for something as good as, or better than, Distant Suns. Short answer: I have not found it yet. ...nothing portrays the night sky as well as Distant Suns.
Distant Suns has been your personal guide to the cosmos since 1985. First on the desktop, now right in your hands. While others play games, you can travel to the stars.… View full description on the official store →
App Specs
🔐 Own this app? Claim & verify MRR →💾 815 MB🔞 4+📱 iOS 14.0+🔖 v5.0.6🔄 updated 0d ago🌐 EN📂 News💰 Paid
📅
What Worked™ · Development Pipeline
8 EVENTS TRACKEDDetected changes in this app over its tracked lifetime — each event links cause (what changed) to effect (what moved). Sorted newest first.See full history →Version history →
2026-03
⭐
Rating ↓ 4.29 → 3.90 (dropped 0.39★)
2012-02
📈
Crossed 100 ratings — social-proof flywheel kicking in
2011-10
📈
Crossed 50 ratings — social-proof flywheel kicking in
2010-07
📈
Crossed 10 ratings — social-proof flywheel kicking in
2010-06
⭐
Rating ↓ 4.43 → 4.00 (dropped 0.43★)
2010-05
⭐
Rating ↑ 3.50 → 4.00 (improved 0.50★)
2010-04
⭐
Rating ↑ 2.00 → 3.50 (improved 1.50★)
2010-04
🚀
First tracked snapshot — initial data captured
🗣
Voice of Customer
Based on 494 reviews across 9 markets● 81% positive · ● 7% neutral · ● 11% negative · Rating drift: -1.19★ (declining — recent 50: 3.1★ vs lifetime: 4.29★)
VADER compound sentiment per quarter (−1 = fully negative, +1 = fully positive). Each point ≥ 5 reviews.
Sentiment by country (−1 to +1)
🇺🇸 US
+0.66
🇦🇺 AU
+0.62
🇬🇧 GB
+0.58
🇨🇦 CA
+0.56
🇮🇳 IN
+0.46
🇫🇷 FR
+0.30
🇧🇷 BR
+0.28
🇯🇵 JP
+0.14
🇩🇪 DE
-0.06
Top praise themes
night sky ×29 solar system ×10 star gazing ×8 highly recommend ×7 learn about ×7 amateur astronomer ×6 deep sky ×6 ipod touch ×6
Top complaint themes
cool stuff ×5 sky view ×4 doesn't work ×4 longer works ×3 new version ×3 compass feature ×3 loading cool ×3 last update ×3
Risk signals
Refund mentions: 0.8% Bug mentions: 6%
🧪
Tech & Domain Intel — youtu.be
- Mail provider
- Google Workspace
- Tech stack
- Google Workspace
Derived from public RDAP + DNS TXT records (no scraping, no login).
🌍
Multi-Country Performance
Available in 9 of 9 monitored markets| Market | Rating | Reviews | Current version |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🇦🇺 AU | 4.5★ | 12 | 4.5★ this version |
| 🇧🇷 BR | 5★ | 3 | 5★ this version |
| 🇨🇦 CA | 4.83333★ | 12 | 4.83333★ this version |
| 🇩🇪 DE | 3.85714★ | 7 | 3.85714★ this version |
| 🇫🇷 FR | 5★ | 4 | 5★ this version |
| 🇬🇧 GB | 3.0625★ | 16 | 3.0625★ this version |
| 🇮🇳 IN | 5★ | 2 | 5★ this version |
| 🇯🇵 JP | 4★ | 2 | 4★ this version |
| 🇺🇸 US | 4.29167★ | 96 | 4.29167★ this version |
🔔
Track this app’s revenue
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📝 Description
95
BU Score · Transcendent
About this analysis
Why low confidence: only 96 ratings · no founder-verified revenue (model estimate only) · revenue figure is directional only.
❓ Frequently Asked Questions
4 answers · auto-generated from this app's public dataHow much does Distant Suns 5 make per month?▴
Based on our ML-calibrated revenue forecast, Distant Suns 5 earns approximately $28K/mo. This is a US-storefront-equivalent estimate; global revenue can be several times larger for internationally-distributed apps. See the methodology page for the full formula and confidence bands.
What apps are like Distant Suns 5?▴
Browse the full News category catalog to find similar apps with revenue, build cost, audience and tech stack data. Each /p/{slug} page also shows a Compare side-by-side widget with three peer apps from the same niche.
Who makes Distant Suns 5?▴
Distant Suns 5 is published by Mike Smithwick on the Apple App Store. See the full publisher portfolio (other apps by the same developer) via the More by developer block on the product page above.
What is Distant Suns 5's BU Score?▴
Distant Suns 5 has a BU Score of 63/100 (Solid). The score combines App Store rating, ratings count, monetization model and revenue signals calibrated against founder-verified MRR anchors. See the BU Score formula.