SpyMeSat iOS app now lets you buy hi-resolution satellite images
It's almost like having your own spy satellite. Last year I took a look at the SpyMeSat app, a US$1.99 app that lets you see when you are in range of an imaging satellite. At the time of my review, you could set alerts to let you know when a satellite was near your location, but this new version takes the process a step further, letting you order up recent satellite images of most locations on earth.
"Now SpyMeSat users can download recent satellite imagery as easily as they can download a song or an app," said Alex Herz, president of Orbit Logic. "This is the same high resolution commercial satellite imagery used by government intelligence agencies, but at a small fraction of the price. SpyMeSat brings satellite imagery to a personal, accessible scale by removing cost and process barriers through technology."
Prices start at $14.99 for a 1km square image. After your online purchase through the app, the high resolution file can be downloaded. The company thinks with that low pricing, governments and small companies will now have sharp imagery in reach. The images are drawn from the WorldView-1, WorldView-2, and GeoEye-1 satellites.
You can see some sample images of Sydney Harbor and Bilbao, Spain. At a glance the imagery may not appear to be more detailed than Google Map images, but these images are much newer. Almost all are less than a year old, with some being less than a month old. Many of the Google images I've looked at are much older and out of date.
SpyMeSat requires iOS 6 or later and is optimized for the iPhone 5.
