Real Aquarium HD App Reviews

I have a multiscreen display and thought it would be cool to have this running on my MBP monitor while I was working. By going to the menu bar at the top of the screen I found "About Real Aquarium HD" or "Quit." No preferences option... Really? So I quit... and ultimately, deleted it. Also the video wasnt what I would call "HD" - maybe it would have looked better on the MBP but on my 25" monitor is was not very impressive. I was fortunate to get this app for free and in all honesy, I probably would have kept it as I liked the concept but as I have an SSD for my main drive this was 2GB that I wanted back.

This is the first app Ive had a problem with. Tried to download & install several times, each time showed over 5 hours to download...finally gave up!

The developer should probably have more than a twitter feed for a support site. It seems to be just movies, but theyre nice movies, and theres some nice info too. So generally, Im sorta happy. (I hope the movies are royalty-free) For those who didnt see how to exit the app. Command-Q works. Or, Move your mouse all the way to the top and your Apple-Bar will appear with a menu. The title-menu has a drop-down item for quitting the application. (That would have been a good thing to put in a FAQ on the Support site. :) ) Some of the movies move too fast for background ambience, but otherwise would be entertaining to watch. 5 bucks may be a bit much unless the developer is paying royalties on the movies and music. Mostly, its a movie player with some nice music and a music player with some nice music, and some info on the animals youre watching (you can continue the movie while the animal info is up by pressing play button at lower right)

What a pain in the neck. I wish I could get my money back. No way to stop it once you start it. I ignored the comment by other user thinking it would not happen to me, but it did. I had some files downloading too, and now theyre all trashed and have to be redone. I hate applications that as I call it hijack my computer. Do yourself a favor. Stay away until the developer fixes this feature. Now I see to those unitiated users like myself (used, worked on,upgraded, AND supported them over 25 years) that "all" you have to do is move the cursor to a corner of the screen? How intuitive is that? Its absurd! How was anybody supposed to know that?

10$ for some crappy videos ?!? Really ?! ...

Theres 9 "montage" type video clips, ranging in time length and of various quality. One clip is 9 minutes, the rest are about 4 minutes. Its a generous amount of video, but everything feels kind of slopped together. The videos arent consistent, which leads me to think that the proper permission (or at least quality control) went in to gather the video. Another problem is that the few ambient songs are basically directly ripped from World of Goo. Which, the music is awesome, but I am a big supporter of WoG, and doubt that permission to use the music was given. So even though I got this for free while it was on "sale", anyone who actually did purchase it, I doubt any money is going toward the video/music content creators. Just some guy who slapped it into a player (and theres no way to exit the app unless you Cmd+Q quit the app. I really hope that things get sorted out, I really want this app to succeed, but I want it to succeed for the right reasons, instead of because of something less-than-moral.

The video quality is terrible and it is a worthless

This is a truely beautiful app perfect for anyone. Whether you sit back and use it as a screensaver, or delve into it and learn about what youre watching using the interactive encyclopedia, its a great app to use. Its built in music adds a nice touch, but what really makes the music system innovative is its beautiful iTunes cover flow interface that allows you to select music from YOUR own library. If you have any questions on this app, click the support button on this AppStore page

The app is beautiful and informational. I love it! It did take a while to download (Over 2 GB!), but it was worth the wait. This app would also be useful in classroms where students are studying ocean life. As for you, Mr. Tao2005, perhaps you should read the description for an app before you download it.

The app is nice and worked well until I got OS 10.7 Lion---now it doesnt start---please fix

I should have known better. Trust the previous reviews! Buggy, Buggy, Buggy. End of story. Do not buy until they have fixed the problems. And my itunes is fine - so whats the excuse now?

It is MASSIVE HUGE FILE SIZE! Realize that this will take probably an hour or more to download, since the file size is 2.44 GB! I didnt realize that this was such a large file before I bought it, and that would have changed my purchase to a NO. Now the app performs well, I have no problems. Then again, I have the most powerful iMac possible, with the max RAM (16 GB) installed, and the i7 has 8 processing threads. I can see how this might not perform well on an average system. If you don t have a powerful computer with plenty of hard disk drive space left, I would stear clear of this one. The app displays some beautiful HD video of underwater creatures. Very elegant and gorgeous overall.

This app REALLY gives you a BIG break. You get to watch lots of animals including my favorite, dolphins; sharks, oysters, jellyfishes and more. It never crashes or has any bug that i have experienced, just a little lag when loading the about me screen, but overall is great, with all the music and everything. I wish, though, in the future the makers would make a virtual version where you could take care of all those, since the app store deosnt have much like that. Great Job, Tap media.

The app is unusable, crashing every time and instantly whenever you try to use a music track from iTunes. I would contact the developer but their very weak Web site is broken -- seriously, who runs a commercial Web site from a Dropbox folder? -- so I guess I am out the $$ I spent on the app. DO NOT DOWNLOAD VERSION 1.2!!! Crashes instantly on Lion 10.6.7, 16Gb RAM, Intel Core i3 iMac.

Id seen some reviews of the free version that made me wary of trying this program out, but it is truly wonderful. After a long day, watching the stingray aquarium was calming and enjoyable. The 2.44gb file size took a little while to download, but for $2 and a bit of hard disk space, its worth every byte! Im running it on the lowest current model MacBook Air with the most recent Mac OS updates, and there are no performance problems or lag to speak of. I might not recommend running this app on a laptop on battery, though, since its HD video and is bound to drain the battery. No qualms though--this app made my day :)

The UI is beautiful and simple to use. the video quality is great too. I love this app. and what makes it even better is the music that it comes with. Please dont listen to those that say that this app is not worth it, I can see that the developers worked hard on this app that is beautiful. Thanks!

This app is a good idea: turn a movie into a screensaver. Thats where the goodness ends. The video is of low quality; plays smoothly but looks terrible and low-res on my 24" display. Music is OK and you can change it, but I found no prefs to set music volume or just plain silence (why would I want music playing all the time in Screensaver mode???). I watched/listened for a while and decided its worth chucking, which I did. Glad it was free.

Recommend avoiding.

The idea is great but the qulity is horrible. It doesnt count if 2 out of the 10 or 12 clips you have are in HD. You should rename this App to Somewhat Real Aquarium HD.

If I had a sound file that played nothing in my iTunes maybe that address my desire for silence.