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The Weather Channel's mixed reality tornado lesson was actually fun
This morning, The Weather Channel debuted the first of its upcoming slate of immersive, mixed reality (IMR) content that's meant to let "viewers truly see the weather like never before". In this segment, meteorologist Jim Cantore explained the Enhanced Fujita (EF) scale that's used to categorize tornadoes. Throughout the 7-minute segment, he dodged faux flying debris and falling cars, making the segment seem not only more relatable, but also entertaining.
Daily iPad App: The Weather Channel
Today's Daily iPad App is The Weather Channel for iPad. The Weather Channel has had an iPad app practically since the iPad launched in early 2010, but The Weather Channel has released version 3.0 of the app, and it's a complete rewrite. Besides an entirely new UI, the new Weather Channel for iPad app borrows some features from other popular iOS weather apps like full-screen animated weather backgrounds for local weather forecasts and in-line hourly forecasts. There's also an improved mapping feature which lets you view the current weather in select cities around the world on an interactive spinning globe. Of course, having an entire cable news channel behind your app means it can also do some things the other weather apps can't, like provide instant news updates and stories, complete with a built-in tweet viewer for The Weather Channel personalities like the constantly over-excited Jim Cantore. The app also offers a nice selection of videos, which include weather forecasts as well as clips from Weather Channel TV shows. The problems with the new Weather Channel for iPad app, however, are the same as with the old app: the advertising. There's simply too much of it. There's actually so much it becomes distracting. Yeah, The Weather Channel for iPad is a free app and they've got to make their money back some way, but it would be nice if TWC offered an in-app purchase for $0.99 or so that allowed people to get rid of the ads. Those ads really do keep a good weather app from being a great one. The Weather Channel for iPad is a free download and requires iOS 4.2 or later and if you want to take advantage of the animated backgrounds, an iPad 2 or later.
