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App Spotlight
Favorite Weather Apps
I would like to begin a series featuring some of my favorite iOS and Mac OS X apps. I’m always on the lookout for innovative apps that can increase productivity, help you get things done, and add to the usefulness of your computer and devices.
To begin this series, I’ll feature two of my favorite weather apps. Both of these apps feature innovative ways to quickly present weather data to you. There is no shortage of weather apps on the App Store, but these two are worthy of your consideration.
Dark Sky
Dark Sky is not your typical weather app. You won’t use Dark Sky to view the day’s highs and lows or check out the 7 day forecast. Dark Sky is a short-term rain forecasting app. It will tell you, to the minute, if it is going to rain within the next hour.
Dark Sky predicts precisely when it will rain or snow at your exact location and has the most beautiful radar visualizations you’ve ever seen. - Source
We like to take our dog on a 40-45 minute walk each morning. Nothing is worse than getting halfway through the walk and becoming trapped in a spontaneous downpour. Dark Sky is the app I rely on to ensure that never happens again.
When you open Dark Sky, you are presented with a precipitation graph and rain predictor. A common predictor will say: “Next Hour: Rain starting in 3 minutes, stopping 30 minutes later.” The accuracy is usually spot-on. As an added bonus, you can configure push notifications to allow Dark Sky to notify you shortly before it rains in your current location.
Check the Weather
One of my favorite general purpose weather apps has become Check the Weather. Check the Weather is an app designed to give you the most essential weather data at your fingertips. The iPhone version implements an innovative gesture-based system to provide the hourly forecast, 10 day forest, and radar. The radar screen gives you access to a Dark Sky based rain predictor. It is one of the first weather apps that utilizes the Dark Sky predictor.
One of the defining features of the app is its distinctive typography. The app features 4 distinct typefaces: Idlewild, Futura, Helvetica, and Avenir Next. When combined with the 5 different color choices, you can drastically change the look of the app. The developer David Smith is an independent iOS developer and will continuously work to enhance the app.
