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'Perfect Weather' Offers Detailed Weather Forecasts at a Glance

Tuesday September 17, 2013 10:08 am PDT by Juli Clover
Perfect Weather is a new weather app from Contrast (formerly App Cubby), the developers behind shortcut app Launch Center Pro. While there are hundreds of weather apps available in the App Store, Perfect Weather offers detailed information packaged in a no-frills single-screen design.

perfectweather1
The app offers a seven-day forecast that includes an interactive line graph of expected temperatures for the next 24-hour period. Sliding a finger on the graph provides the estimated temperature at exact moments, and swiping to the left reveals specific information about humidity, pressure, visibility, wind speed, sunrise, sunset, and more.

Perfect Weather is organized in a manner similar to Apple's Passbook. There is a main forecast window, but pulling down allows access to additional locations and tapping will minimize the window to reveal an animated radar map underneath. The radar map displays either 20 minutes of rain activity or three hours of cloud activity.

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All the weather info you need at a glance:

- 7 day forecast
- Weather maps with radar and clouds
- Detailed current conditions
- Temperature chart with hourly forecast pop-up

Clear interface that's easy to use:

- See temperatures in all locations at once
- Switch quickly between locations
- View and share severe weather alerts
Because Perfect Weather uses data from NOAA for its radar map and forecasts, it is only available to users within the United States. The app can be downloaded from the App Store for $2.99. [Direct Link]
[ 33 comments ]

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keysofanxiety
Posted: 11 months ago

Looks like MR is paying the bills again....


Why the sarcastic comment? This site is free and they're showing an application that some people may find useful -- MR have, on multiple occasions, state that they don't advertise apps for profit.

Other people may find this app useful, and I myself have checked out a lot of apps that MR have previously demonstrated -- as I wouldn't have found them otherwise.

Sometimes I feel 90% of comments these days are just a rush to get the first sarcastic comment, adding absolutely nothing to the discussion.
Rating: 20 Votes
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DocStone
Posted: 11 months ago
Looks like MR is paying the bills again....
Rating: 11 Votes
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johnparjr
Posted: 11 months ago
The new weather app in ios7 is great too
Rating: 6 Votes
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nutmac
Posted: 11 months ago
I like the developer so I pulled the trigger to show support. $2.99 is totally fine to me if it means the developer will be able to support and improve the app.

My initial impression:
[LIST=1]
[*]The app resembles my go-to "power weather" iPad app, Seasonality Go. Like it, it has pastel color accents and chart, but greatly stripped down to bare essentials.
[*]The app resembles Apple's Passbook and iOS 7's Reminders app, using cards metaphor. Each card represents a location and you can drag it to rearrange as you like. You cannot customize the color of each card, however.
[*]The app has 6 views: (1) Summary that shows current temperature and condition (e.g., cloudy, clear) of all the cards (locations), (2) click on the card and it will expand to show selected location's summary + daily high and low + precipitation, (3) unroll for 7-day forecast (with daily high/low and condition), (4) unroll more for daily temperature chart, (5) swipe right on the daily temperature chart for feels like temperature, humidity, pressure, visibility, wind, sunrise, sunset, and dew point, and (6) click on the little "lightning" button on the left side of each card to see "alert report" view that shows weather alert.
[*]In the bottom of each view is a satellite map, with a button to animate the last 20 minutes and another button to toggle between precipitation and cloud (there's also + and - slider, but I have no idea what it does).
[*]The app feels quick and right on my iPhone 5 running iOS 7 GM.
[*]The data comes from WDT (NOAA), not my preferred Forecast.io. But it seems accurate enough.
[/LIST]

Issues:
[LIST=1]
[*]"Your Location" view does not show name of the location.
[*]All the data are shown in US-imperial units (e.g., Fahrenheit, mph, inches, miles). No option to change.
[*]The app does not pull data from cities in other countries, even Canada and Mexico are not available.
[/LIST]

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$2.99 for this, when I can get a "trusted name" The Weather Channel, Yahoo Weather, or Accuweather for free? No Thanks.


The developer, David Barnard, is highly respected in the iOS development community. I rather use highly polished app from talented independent developer vs. commercial app that feels bloated and rushed to the market and/or packed with ads. Also, you should look at this Oatmeal's comic.
This is how I feel about buying apps. (http://theoatmeal.com/blog/apps)
Rating: 4 Votes
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OllyW
Posted: 11 months ago

Yup. Clearly a paid advertisement.


MacRumors doesn't do paid promotions without disclosing the fact.

http://guides.macrumors.com/Help:MacRumors_FAQ#Are_news_stories_really_advertising_in_disguise.3F
Rating: 2 Votes
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naeS1Sean
Posted: 11 months ago
Meh...replacing stock apps seems like a tough market. I'll stick with Apple's gorgeous weather app.
Rating: 2 Votes
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nutmac
Posted: 11 months ago

Can you post or link a screenshot showing wind? Does it offer a multi-day wind forecast? I'm a kite nut (http://youtu.be/dvqA1xdI3aA) and I'm currently using the effective but ugly and ad-supported Wunderground to monitor the wind forecast.


No, just a current wind speed and direction (e.g., 8 mph NW).
Rating: 1 Votes
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d-klumpp
Posted: 11 months ago

WeatherBug: the free version is ad supported. Ad-free version costs $2.99

Weather Uunderground: ad supported. To remove ads, you need to pay $1.99 per year subscription.

Forecast.io website is a promotional tool to get developers sign up and pay for access to its API and it has ads from Fusion. And like you said, while it is nice, it's a website, not an app.

If you want free ad-supported apps, you can use one of thousands of apps out there or stick to Apple's built-in Weather app. If you want ad-free, you gotta pay as developers need to feed themselves and often need to pay for access to weather data.


I support developers by buying decent apps, and I gladly pay to have an ad-free experience.

My go-to weather app is WeatherBug Elite because of the density of reporting stations. As a cyclist living in Chicago, I know that conditions often vary greatly over short distances going away from the lake or north-to-south, so the conditions at O'Hare are of no interest. For my money, any app that only gives info from a single reporting station is useless in any place that has local effects (i.e., pretty much everywhere).

Dave
Rating: 1 Votes
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GIZBUG
Posted: 11 months ago
$2.99 for this, when I can get a "trusted name" The Weather Channel, Yahoo Weather, or Accuweather for free? No Thanks.
Rating: 1 Votes

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