© Roger Pearson, 2016-2024
First things first
Let’s get things straight. AstroConnexions is an astrology app for the iPad/Mac/iPhone. It calculates astrology charts for people wishing to practice or study astrology. It doesn’t do predictions, or provide a sun-sign reading. It utilises the Swiss ephemeris so the astronomical calculations can be relied upon to be accurate. The focus of this post is the iPhone. Some screenshots are taken from an iPad – frequently there is no difference in the functionality/UI of the iPad or iPhone. Most of the underlying code is the same, probably 99%.
The main idea
The main idea behind the design of AC is to make it easy to do those day-to-day things that an amateur or professional astrologer, from a beginner to a seasoned pro would do. If you’ve previously used an astrology desktop program on a Windows platform you’ll find AC is simple yet surprisingly powerful. If you’re new to astrology software please take your time to get to know AC. It’ll be worth it!
******** AstroConnexions tor iPhone is designed to be used in portrait mode. ********
The main concept
Astrologers accept that the natal/radix chart or horary chart is the root of all calculations and that all further calculations (progressions, directions etc) are based on this fundamental concept. The radix is king! AC consistently maintains this throughout all its views. How?
The current natal chart view is never changed by AC whilst it is displayed on the main page. All other charts eg Solar Returns are derived from the natal. So you can be sure that you can always go back to the natal chart knowing that nothing has been altered. Of course the natal chart can be edited but any previously displayed derived chart will be updated by the change in the natal data. Natal charts are the only charts that can edited as all other charts are derived from the natal chart data. This is common practise in Astro software.
So let’s look at how AC takes this idea and utilises it.
Whenever a chart is selected to be viewed the display shown is always set to be Natal: