3D Planet Weather Simulator 'Living Earth' Updated with New Visual Design, Background App Refresh - MacRumors
Skip to Content

3D Planet Weather Simulator 'Living Earth' Updated with New Visual Design, Background App Refresh

by

Popular 3D planet weather simulator Living Earth - Clock & Weather has received a major update today, featuring a refreshed design for iOS 7, additional support for weather conditions such as visibility, and background app refreshing for up-to-date Earth rendering. The update also includes parallax effects for devices running iOS 7 and general performance enhancements throughout the app.

livingearth

What's New in Version 3.0
Living Earth 3.0 features a beautiful new icon and refreshed design for iOS7!

- Support for additional weather conditions. Swipe top conditions bar in the forecast view to display Dew Point, Visibility, Barometric pressure & UV Index.
- Feels Like temp is now displayed in the forecast view.
- Parallax effects for a touch of depth (iOS7 only).
- Background fetch, updates multitasking thumbnail for more up to date Earth rendering and weather (iOS7 only).
- Ability to enable and disable alarms in the alarm list view.
- Speed improvements throughout.
- Numerous bug fixes (but we won't bore you with all those details).
- Numerous small tweaks that you probably won't notice but we spent a lot of time on.
- Living Earth is now fully localized for German, Spanish, French, Italian, Russian, Chinese, Japanese, Korean and Portuguese.

Living Earth has been noted on multiple occasions, including being chosen by Apple as the best iPhone and iPad utility in its 2011 App Store Rewind, being named by the New York Times as a top 10 iPad app, and featured by Starbucks as an "App Pick of the Week" earlier this year.

Living Earth - Clock & Weather is currently on sale at $2.99 for a limited time (increasing to $4.99 after the launch sale) and can be downloaded through the App Store. [Direct Link]

Top Rated Comments

165 months ago
Well this feels an awful lot like an advert
Score: 4 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Substance Avatar
165 months ago
I've really fallen in love with this app. At first it seemed to be a nice 'demo' app to show friends and do some geography exploring without pulling up the more heavyweight Google Earth or mapping apps. While it's still great for that, what has suprised me most is how much I like it for using it as my first-choice weather app for current conditions and forecast.

The interface is clean and presents just the right amount of pertinent weather information, something many other weather apps could learn from. And when you want more or different information, all the clickeable areas just seem to be in the right spot.

While it can't compete on radar mapping, it does have a couple other features that most other weather apps either don't have, get wrong, or bury too deep in their interfaces. Those are the current temperature badge (you have to enable it, it's disabled by default - a smart choice) and the location aware-temperature. The latter is fantastic when you are travelling. If if you don't turn that feature on (disabled by default also), the 'current location' icon is only two taps away.

This is not an ad, I am not affliated with the app in any ways, I carry at least a dozen weather apps with me (I love to feature compare, especially weather apps for some reason) and I appreciate MacRumors posting an update about this.
Score: 3 Votes (Like | Disagree)
165 months ago
Hopefully the OS X App will follow! Taking up 350mb of RAM for a background app is a bit excessive methinks.
Score: 2 Votes (Like | Disagree)
165 months ago
If it's supposed to be all iOS7-ish, why isn't space white in the background?
Score: 1 Votes (Like | Disagree)

Popular Stories

iPhone 18 Pro Deep Red Feature

iPhone 18 Pro Launching in Two Months With These 12 New Features

Friday July 17, 2026 10:39 am PDT by
It is now mid-July, and that means the iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max are now just two months away. The devices are expected to look similar to the iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max, but there will still be many year-over-year changes, with rumored features including a smaller Dynamic Island, 5G via satellite, and more. Apple is expected to unveil the iPhone 18 Pro, iPhone 18 Pro Max, ...
iCloud General Feature Redux

Apple Raises iCloud+ Prices in 8 Countries

Friday July 17, 2026 11:56 am PDT by
Apple has increased the price of iCloud+ in Nigeria, Türkiye, Vietnam, Japan, Egypt, New Zealand, the Philippines, and Indonesia, according to an updated version of its iCloud support document. Price increases range from 11 percent to 55 percent depending on the plan and the country. Nigeria saw the biggest hike, and a 50GB plan is now ₦1,300, up from ₦900. Türkiye saw the next largest...
iphone 17 cyber

Apple Closes Unlocked iPhone Loophole for T-Mobile and Verizon Financing

Wednesday July 15, 2026 3:20 pm PDT by
Carrier-financed iPhones purchased from Apple will soon be locked to the carrier, ending a workaround customers used to purchase an unlocked iPhone on a payment plan. Until the rule change, buying an iPhone from Apple and opting for financing through Verizon or T-Mobile meant you would get an iPhone not locked to either carrier's network. That's no longer the case, and now iPhones financed...