Weather Wow probably won't 'wow' you

Weather Wow (free with in-app purchases) has a nice GUI but that's about it. Pop up ads, sometimes full screen, mar the work that went into the graphic niceties.

Weather Wow lets you set other cities besides your own location, but the default settings have weather sounds. Since it was raining when I first ran the app, I was greeted by really loud sound effects of rain. It took me a while to be able to find the settings to turn them off, because a settings icon does not appear on the main screen, but it is 'cleverly' hidden and revealed by swiping. I found a couple times that even though I turned the noises off, on subsequent visits to the app the aggravating sounds returned. If I wanted to hear the rain, I'd go outside or open a window.

The app also says it features local news feeds, based on your GPS location. When I tried it yesterday the story displayed was one month old. When I tried today, the app confused my location with a similarly named city in California, and loaded me up with irrelevant news. It's a good idea to combine local news and weather, but for me this app was an utter failure at news.



The graphics are attractive (when they aren't interrupted by ads). I actually like the look of the screens, and there are in-depth forecasts and accurate local conditions.

An in-app purchase of US$0.99 removes the ads, but other free apps like Apple's built-in weather app, or the superior Yahoo Weather have as much information or more, and don't feel the need for cheesy sound effects or ads. Google News and Weather (reviewed yesterday) isn't the greatest to look at, but they have the ads under control and no silly sound effects.

Weather Wow is a good idea, wrapped in a flawed presentation. It didn't wow me, and I can't imagine most people getting excited about it. The app annoys with sounds, ads, and for me at least, a failure to deliver timely local news.

Pass.

Weather Wow requires iOS 6 or later.