Dead Reckoning Studio LLC · Highlands Ranch, Colorado
This is the hero section. Every website has one. We were told it's mandatory.We make apps.Some of them are even intentional.
Independent software.Questionable judgment.Surprisingly good results.
For iOS, Android, and the web.
Trusted by the people who built it. Tolerated by a beta group that is still speaking to us. Featured in nothing yet. We'll wait.
Carefully designed. Obsessively tested. Released despite our better judgment.
The Apps
Our latest questionable decision
Public beta · iPhone · Android is "on the list"
AstroCompass
Point your phone at the sky and identify the stars, planets, constellations, and galaxies above you. Live, offline, and without pretending every bright object is Orion.
Humanity spent thousands of years studying the night sky. We put it in your phone. On a clear night it can even check its own heading against the real stars, which is more than we can say for most compasses, or most people.
Works offline, because stars have notoriously poor cellular coverage.
astrocompass.app Built from genuine astronomical data, not vibes.
Support for this app: astrocompass.app/support
An app by Dead Reckoning Studio. We're as surprised as you are.
The Studio
Dead Reckoning Studio is an independent software company.
Nobody agrees where the "dead" in dead reckoning comes from. Some say it's short for "deduced." Dictionaries disagree with each other. We've decided not to have an opinion, which is the closest this studio gets to restraint.
We build focused apps based on ideas that won't leave us alone. Usually because existing products are too complicated, too expensive, visually offensive, or somehow all three.
We don't have a sprawling campus, a Chief Synergy Officer, or an inspirational mural proclaiming that failure is merely success wearing sweatpants.
We make the app. We try to make it excellent. Then we release it into the wild and hope you don't find the one button we forgot to test.
Behind the questionable commentary is a straightforward philosophy: software should be useful, understandable, respectful of its users, and enjoyable to use. You don't really know where you are until you know where you've been. We keep the logbook so you don't have to.
House rules
- Rule 1
One job. Done properly.
Every app exists to do one thing well. If a feature doesn't serve that one thing, it doesn't get in, no matter how good it looked in the meeting we didn't have.
- Rule 2
No dark patterns
No fake countdowns, no "are you sure you want to miss out," no cancel button hidden four screens deep. If we have to trick you into staying, we've already lost.
- Rule 3
The price is on the door
What an app costs is stated before you tap anything. Free means free. Paid means we tell you the number, once, in a normal font.
- Rule 4
You are not the product
No ad networks, and no account unless the app genuinely can't work without one. Each app ships with a short privacy policy that says exactly what leaves your device, why, and when it's deleted.
- Rule 5
Bugs regenerate. So do fixes.
Report a bug and a human reads it, usually the one who wrote it. The fix ships with a note that says what went wrong, in plain English, no "we've made some improvements."
- Rule 6
Serious product. Unserious studio.
Each app gets its own personality, from profound to plain to whatever it needs to be. The studio is the one leaning into frame making the observation nobody asked for.
A cookie banner would go here. We don't have cookies.
Support, complaints, fan mail
- Studio
- Dead Reckoning Studio LLC
Highlands Ranch, Colorado, USA - hello@deadreckoningstudio.com
A human reads it. Probably the same human that caused the problem in the first place.
You read the whole thing. Nobody reads the whole thing. Email us. You're clearly our kind of person.