Why You Shouldn't Use the Co-Star and The Pattern Apps

For those wondering why so many of us have been “bashing” the Co-Star app, here’s a few articles about the trolls - no, not people using the app, the creators. And The Pattern isn’t any better. Both apps are overly-simplified to the point of being useless.

Also, their attempts at humour are boring at best, and creepy at worst, plus sometimes the silly little updates they give you don’t make any sort of sense. It’s a mix of shock-factor just for the sake of seeming cool, and lazy, cliche new age platitudes.

I learn Astrology through books, and online articles, then use astro-seek.com and astro.com to make charts at my computer, but if you prefer a mobile app to make charts, there are others suggested in these articles. I recommend Synastry if you have Android and want something that shows you all of your current transits in order of importance, and gives some basic yet helpful info. about each one, including house transits.

It’s annoying how these apps brainwash people into pretending life is a cringely “edgy” party, and expect everything to fall into place while they pretend to learn Astrology.

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“…a lot of astrology enthusiasts online have been calling out Co-Star even before the trolling for various reasons: not showing the entire birth chart, using a confusing house system…”


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“Co--Star lacking things like degrees or all of the house placements is a fatal flaw in the app because house placements, degrees, and transits are just as crucial as different planet placements. In this situation, less is not more…


Not only are these notifications completely ridiculous and out-of-pocket, but there is also no astrological backing, and they don’t even have anything to do with astrology. It’s genuinely baffling that these deliberately distressing notifications are allowed to be sent out just to get users to open the app.”


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“Yet to my surprise, Co-Star, using 'NASA' data, got some of my natal chart significantly wrong. It placed my natal Moon in the birth chart’s House 1. That’s wrong; it’s one house off. Co-Star went on to describe the 'Moon in House 1 personality.' It placed my Saturn in House 2. That’s one house off. The other house placements were correct, so what was the matter?

I looked hard throughout the app for the reason, and discovered in Settings that Co-Star defaults not to the classic Western astrological house configuration, called 'Placidus,' that most astrologers use, but one called 'Porphyry,' older but less precise. The settings page offered a choice of Porphyry, Placidus, and "I Don't Care," a really patronizing option. You wouldn't be on this app if you didn't care.

So all of my, and your, Co-Star daily readings will be based on an unfamiliar or faulty birth chart. The app correctly placed my natal Jupiter in Libra, but interpreted it as if it were not retrograde.”