Weather apps for iOS are a dime a dozen. However, there are a select few that really stand out in terms of user interface (UI), accuracy, and are just plain nice to look at. A new app called Check The Weather is one that combines a nice UI and clean presentation of weather information.
Starting the app brings you to the primary information screen which displays the current temperature and conditions, a chart showing the tempurature progression for several hours and a 3 day forecast at the bottom. As you can see, Check The Weather (CTW) follows what I call the "clean" look that many UI's are standardizing on, a white background with use of selective font typefaces. I find the presenation style of CTW very plesant to look at.
Starting the app brings you to the primary information screen which displays the current temperature and conditions, a chart showing the tempurature progression for several hours and a 3 day forecast at the bottom. As you can see, Check The Weather (CTW) follows what I call the "clean" look that many UI's are standardizing on, a white background with use of selective font typefaces. I find the presenation style of CTW very plesant to look at.
CTW is very quick to refresh its data which cannot be said for some other weather apps that I have used in the past. In terms of accuracy, I am not sure of the source that the developer is using but I have found that CTW is usually on par with another one of my favorite weather apps, Weather HD which uses Accuweather for its data source.
To obtain more detail, the UI supports swipe gestures from the sides of the screen to access other panels of information, including extended hourly and daily forecasts. A swipe from the bottom will open a doppler radar map that integrates with Dark Sky, an extremely accurate information source for precipitation levels and chance of rain for a given area.
Extended Daily Forecast (Swipe to Left), Extended Hourly Forcast (Swipe to the right), and Doppler Radar (Swipe from bottom):
To obtain more detail, the UI supports swipe gestures from the sides of the screen to access other panels of information, including extended hourly and daily forecasts. A swipe from the bottom will open a doppler radar map that integrates with Dark Sky, an extremely accurate information source for precipitation levels and chance of rain for a given area.
Extended Daily Forecast (Swipe to Left), Extended Hourly Forcast (Swipe to the right), and Doppler Radar (Swipe from bottom):
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Hazardous weather alerts from the National Weather Service are also displayed on the main screen when available.
CTW uses the iOS location service to poll GPS coordinates and report the weather from the current location. Other locations can be added by pressing the location bar at the top of the screen which will slide down a panel which will list other locations and provide the opportunity to add addtional ones. CTW's minimal settings controls (24hr time and Celsius/Farhenheit) are also accessible from this panel. One of the minor issues I found with the reporting of locations was that app did not report my town as the current location but rather the larger New York City metro area. Sometimes the difference in weather conditions can be significantly different based on the granularity of the location, even in the same city. I contacted the developer of CTW and he informed me that the weather information is based on the GPS coordinates that are read from the device and that the labeling of the location may not be as accurate. The developer mentioned that he will attempt to improve that reporting in possible future updates. This is a minor quibble, just as long as the weather is being reported accurately for my current location.
Overall, CTW is yet another very well designed weather application for the iOS platform. The app is is priced at $1.99 USD. If you are a fan of elegant design and accurate weather data, Check The Weather is the app for you.
CTW uses the iOS location service to poll GPS coordinates and report the weather from the current location. Other locations can be added by pressing the location bar at the top of the screen which will slide down a panel which will list other locations and provide the opportunity to add addtional ones. CTW's minimal settings controls (24hr time and Celsius/Farhenheit) are also accessible from this panel. One of the minor issues I found with the reporting of locations was that app did not report my town as the current location but rather the larger New York City metro area. Sometimes the difference in weather conditions can be significantly different based on the granularity of the location, even in the same city. I contacted the developer of CTW and he informed me that the weather information is based on the GPS coordinates that are read from the device and that the labeling of the location may not be as accurate. The developer mentioned that he will attempt to improve that reporting in possible future updates. This is a minor quibble, just as long as the weather is being reported accurately for my current location.
Overall, CTW is yet another very well designed weather application for the iOS platform. The app is is priced at $1.99 USD. If you are a fan of elegant design and accurate weather data, Check The Weather is the app for you.
Update: Version 1.2 was just released and is available in the App Store. The major feature for this version is the app is now universal and runs as a native iPad app. To keep the app data looking uncluttered with the larger screen iPad, the extended data can now be seen by running your finger along the weather graph. At each data point, a little pop up window shows the detailed information for that time.
Pros
App Store Link
- Clean design and look
- Fast data refresh
- Accurate weather info
- Wealth of information easily accessible
- Doppler Radar with Dark Sky precipitation data
- Multiple location support
- NWS weather alerts
- Universal app (iPhone & iPad)
- Location labeling needs tweaking down to the town level
- No current temperature badge on iOS icon
- No push of severe weather alerts
App Store Link
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