Steven Huey for the Art & Logic blog, on the bevy of iOS weather apps:
Many designers and developers of mobile apps have since turned their attention to weather apps. App stores are overflowing with different takes on answering the timeless question of “what’s the weather like today?” and just as with Twitter clients, you can easily hop between them either simply by entering your ZIP code or letting the app use your current location.
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These apps showcase some great visual and interaction design and offer some really interesting takes on the mundane weather report.
While the system Weather app in iOS (currently) is pretty nice, being the geek that I am, I’ve always enjoyed checking out third-party alternatives. It’s really interesting to see how developers differentiate themselves in presenting the same basic information, more or less. Huey’s analogy to the Twitter UI playground is right on, as the parallels are uncannily similar in terms of the variety in design and personality.
My favorite third-party weather app right now is Yahoo’s[1] because it so closely resembles iOS 7’s Weather app. (Once iOS 7 ships, I’ll probably stick with the system Weather app; it seems really cool.) Other good apps I’ve tried are David Smith’s Check The Weather and Today Weather from Savvy Apps. Both apps have the added bonus of being universal, so they’ll work on the iPad too.
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I will never use the exclamation point in the name. Ever. ↩
