Horoscope Review: Free Smartphone App "My Horoscope" by ID Mobile SA: A Worthy Companion for 2012

My Horoscope app icon

Update Brings This App Closer to Perfection

Among the top smartphone daily-horoscope apps is “My Horoscope,” “by an astrologer with over 12 years of experience” who is not named. This free app has been downloaded more than a million times. Your horoscope app will be a daily companion so it’s crucial to ask: Is “My Horoscope” a genuine horoscope? Is it accurate? Is the app easy to read and use? Let’s look into it.

This app has two great features: First, horoscopes are available in 11 languages including Arabic and Tamil, and the latest addition, Portuguese.

Horoscopes More Focused Than Most

And a second great feature: “My Horoscope” daily forecasts are specific to your "decanate." Astrologers divide each Sun sign into three groups and you belong to one, depending on your birthday. To explain, let’s use Taurus. Taureans born from April 21 to April 30 are “first-decanate” Taureans, and their horoscope differs from those born May 1-10, who are “second-decanate” Taureans. If your birthday is from May 11-20 you are a “third-decanate” Taurus. Each sign has three 10-day decanates. In the app, each sign has three identical silhouettes numbered I, II, or III. Tap one; the blue silhouette will turn white and you will see the daily horoscope. Not sure you got it right? Look in the box just above where the desired sign and birth dates are spelled out.

“Hard to see” is the main problem with the “My Horoscope” app. Its icon is a circular blue zodiac wheel image in a steel-gray frame. After tapping the icon, you can input your birthday, or scroll through the Sun signs from a horizontal line of 36 silhouettes, colored pale blue on a midnight blue background. A silhouette of two fish represents the sign Pisces, for example. Unfortunately these silhouettes are small (over-40s, use your magnifiers!) and lack detail. Users will have to adapt to the look of their own and their friends’ Sun-sign silhouettes. Virgo the Virgin looks like Cinderella dancing at the ball.

Content for this horoscope app is intelligent and direct and a full paragraph. For example, a Gemini scope for Nov. 29: “Your immediate response is rather unnecessarily aggressive which could result in you making real enemies of anyone who dares to stand in your way. Try to adopt a more restrained approach….If you are not 100 percent sure of the facts be sure that (sic) keep your mouth shut and think twice before saying anything.” “Keep your mouth shut” is not very polite! Nonetheless such blunt advice might stick in your mind for the whole day. An updated version of the app that made me like it much better is the menu button at top center which lets the user select horoscopes from two days before the current day to two days in the future. A couple of times, rarely, I have found that the "Day After Tomorrow" scope was not yet posted when I wanted it.

How accurate are these forecasts? By comparing several daily-horoscope columns by different authors it can be seen that those based on genuine planetary aspects will, broadly, have the same theme. On Dec. 13, “My Horoscope” app told me, “a mountain of work in front of you today.” Other horoscopes echoed that, and furthermore it was true. And the next day my scope said, “Don’t be afraid to accept help from others,” good advice while I was storming that mountain of work.

On another day while I was examining this app my forecast said, “Today you don’t seem to be able to accomplish anything. Don’t let this set you back too far, however. If you continue to work steadily, you will rediscover success once more. In your private life the situation is similar,” and I was amazed because this sounded exactly like my life; but looking twice, I saw it was actually a Virgo horoscope and I am an Aquarius. Because of this app's monotone color scheme, such basic info doesn't stand out, and you might miss it the way I did.

Clicking on the plus sign in the upper left-hand corner of the “My Horoscope” screen leads you to the ad-free Pro version of this app, available for 99 cents from iTunes, the iPhone Store and Android Market, but I found that like other apps I cannot download it onto my Droid without accepting Google Play. I don't want Google running my life.

To summarize: Good horoscopes and a classy-looking design that is not quite 100 percent user-friendly but has been conscientiously updated with expanded features. I like it.

Sylvia Sky, experienced astrologer, reviews horoscopes and psychic sites for quality and accuracy. Read about another horoscope app. This review was posted 21 December 2011 and updated 12 April 2012. Copyright 2011-2012 by Sylvia Sky.