You can’t control the weather, but these free apps, a lot of which have capable iOS equivalents, can assist you get ready for it.
When Mother Nature remains in a tiff, it helps to keep an eye on what’s going on in the sky, and these Android apps can help. Well, some of them.
When testing weather condition apps, I invest the majority of my time examining the apps as apps. Reliable design is one of my key requirements: I want my ideal weather app to be aesthetically pleasing and simple to use. I think about not only what details the apps present, however also how and where they present it. If I need to dig through several screens to learn when it’s going to rain, the app is off to a bad start.
I likewise take a look at widgets, which are a defining characteristic of the Android experience (and no place to be discovered on iOS). I presume that most Android users prefer to get their weather information from a handy widget, instead of having to open an app. The number of widgets consisted of with weather condition apps differs, however more widgets isn’t really necessarily much better. Again, I look primarily at style and how the widgets present their information.
To my surprise, performance turns out to be a differentiator in the weather app category. A few of the apps I have actually evaluated are sluggish, some to the point of being nearly unusable.
Accuracy Schmaccuracy
What I do not try to find is whether the predicted weather happened. Am I lazy? Absolutely. However that’s not why I left accuracy off my list.
My reasons are two-fold: First, the majority of weather condition apps get the bulk of their data from the National Weather condition Service. Some even pull the predictions from services like Weather condition Underground or AccuWeather. Some business, like The Weather Channel, have their own predictive models, but lots of apps are just shells into which data circulations.
Second, and more significantly, to truly identify the precision of the service’s model we ‘d need to carry out exhaustive tests around the world. We’re merely not set up to tackle that kind of obstacle. As it stands, we’ll assume that if a company has invested the time and effort to create its own predictive models for something as complex as weather then it probably knows more about meteorology than I do. For what it’s worth, the apps all seemed rather precise during my testing.
If you’re really concerned about precision, think about getting a weather station of your own. I’ve taken a look at the Ambient Weather condition WS-1001-WIFI Observer$ 299.99 at Amazon and the BloomSky Solar Powered Weather Station and discovered it surprisingly compelling to have my own, hyper-local weather data. Some stations, like the Observer, hook into Weather condition Underground’s service, providing you a customized forecast and enhancing the total service. Plus, establishing and maintaining a weather condition station is an enjoyable project– simply maybe not right prior to a typhoon hits.
I Don’t See My Favorite App!
When I started this project, I did not fully value the large variety of weather apps on Google Play. In the end, I chose the ones that I thought provided something special and the ones that are the most popular. If your favorite app didn’t make it, let me know in the remarks below. The next time you drop in, you’ll most likely see sleek, brand-new reviews.
Weather Underground
Free
Weather Underground is a darling amongst weather geeks, utilizing its network of personal weather condition stations to supplement the weather condition data the other men draw from. That community element even makes its way into the Android app, letting users submit their own weather condition observations with just a couple of taps. A current style refresh has made this very capable app smooth and stylish, landing it in the top spot as my Editors’ Option for Android weather condition apps.
Yahoo Weather
Free
A really close runner-up, Yahoo Weather is a beautifully developed app that generates the best functions of other weather apps– as well as enhances on them. Crowd-sourced images from Flickr are included prominently and truly bring this app to life. What’s missing? More radar map alternatives, and a tool for crowd-sourcing weather condition observations. If you do not like Weather Underground, offer this one a spin.
The Weather Channel
Free
I left to a bad start with the Weather Channel app, but an update altered everything. The brand-new version of the Weather Channel app is a slick and capable buddy.
1Weather
Free
1Weather hangs its hat on its style and a slew of slick widgets to provide your weather info. To me, however, the app feels a bit stale, and its design is more glamour than compound. That stated, this app has one of the best hourly and weekly forecast pages of any app I’ve tested. Other designers should steal these concepts.
Weather
Free
If you’re a fan of iOS’s pre-7.0 skeumorphism, you’ll most likely appreciate the clean look and wood-grain style of Weather condition for Android. This app is little on the skimpy side, but it delivers all the important details.
AccuWeather
Free
AccuWeather is in major need of a style refresh on Android. It feels extremely dated, however, worse yet, it’s sluggish. While it does offer multilingual video projections, I would rather use the AccuWeather site than filth around in the app. Recent updates may have altered the story, and I’ll be investigating soon.
WeatherBug
Free
WeatherBug badgered me a lot with its dog-slow efficiency that I could not wait to obtain it off my Android phone. Add to that a little collection of dull widgets and bad style, and you have actually got a real trifecta of discomfort. Not even WeatherBug’s special lightning-detection function can do much to retrieve this one.
