When I started off, I didn't intent to compete against any existing apps; however I got quite some good feedback from friends so I decided to publish the app anyway.

Regarding Sunseeker: give Sun Locator a chance anyways! Although I'm obviously biased, I would say the Map view is streets ahead of sunseeker. Plus the free (lite) version is already much more useful and the pro version is still cheaper.

First, as the developer of one of the existing apps (Sun Surveyor) in the space, congratulations! Long time HN lurker; never expected to see this space come up here. My experience with it has been incredibly fulfilling, and I never knew about Sun Seeker et all (or the difficulty involved in some aspects) when I started or I may not have. I'd love to compare notes sometime.

Second, I see you have a lite and pro app. I'm curious what made you choose that model; when I released my app there were no IAPs, and now it's almost too troublesome to try to switch to that model for me. It's rare to see a non-IAP model these days so just curious how it's working out for you and your rationale! I certainly wish I could just have IAP.

Thanks for the encouraging words! I think Sun Surveyor is undisputed the top app in the space. It's really quite an instructive and interesting process to publish an app, try your hands at marketing, answer requests, work around at intricacies of different Android versions and device models. Coming from a background in academia and research, it's very fulfilling to see your app (even though it's comparatively simple) used by hundreds of people.

Regarding IAP: I'm not using in-app purchases. At the beginning I thought it to be too much of an effort to implement and now it's too late. So there are two separate apps available, the free version (shows data only for the current day) and the paid version (shows data for any day). I think this is similar to your app(?). I thought it would be easier to get users to try a free app and than upgrade instead of having to buy a paid app without getting to test the app beforehand. However the rate of people buying the pro version is rather low (around 3-4% of Lite users purchase the Pro version; I don't know what your experience is?)

Send me an email ([email protected]) to compare notes, I'm definitely interested!