Point Your iPad At The Sky

Michael Leunig is an official ‘Australian Living Treasure’. He is best known for his minimalist, laconic cartoons, often without captions, which do seem to capture many of our insecurities. Sometimes they don’t work. Often they do and we are enthralled. Although opinions vary, I feel one of his best depicts a father and his young son sitting on the floor in front of a TV on which is displayed a beautiful sunset. Both are enjoying this experience, and one gets the sense that it is bringing them closer together. You know, bonding. But in the background is an open window through which we can see the identical sunset, the real one, and it’s completely ignored by the two entrenched in front of the TV set.

I was reminded of this cartoon by a friend this week. We were having a few drinks; there are seven of us that have met every couple of weeks for 30 years. This time it was at Steve’s place. Steve and his wife live in an authentic sixties highrise with a great view of the Melbourne skyline, and of the sky. I looked out and asked Steve whether he had enjoyed last week’s supermoon, what was it, 15% brighter because it was the closest to earth for 18 years? Steve stopped talking, and after a minute or so he made which could only be described as a confession. ‘Bless me Father’, he started, and said he was in his study one evening last week and he was playing with his iPad, with an App called Star Walk. This allows you to hold the iPad up in the air and view all the stars, constellations, planets, and any other stuff in that part of the sky. He showed it to me. It’s very spooky. I have no idea how it works. It does look beautiful. So, Steve looked at the supermoon on his iPad, and, you know, he forget to take the 20 paces from his study to his balcony and look at the real moon with his own eyes. He confessed to me that he only saw it on his iPad. The best view of the sky in Melbourne!

So I went to the iTunes store and looked up Star Walk. It’s $5.99 and available in 11 languages. This is the description of the App: “Star Walk enables you to point your iPad at the sky and see what stars, constellations, and satellites you are looking at in realtime”

So, we can watch the sunset on TV, the stars on iPad, we can buy all necessities over the internet, all that is left are Apps for digestion, elimination and procreation, and we won’t have to leave our room at all.

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