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Weathertron for iOS forecasts the weather accurately, uniquely
Weathertron (US$0.99) is a new and unique weather app for iOS. There are many weather apps available on the iOS App Store. Most of them tell the weather with a number to indicate the temperature and a graphic to show whether it's sunny, overcast, raining, etc. However, to get more information, like five-day or hour-by-hour forecasts, you need to dig a bit deeper. The Met Office weather app is a bit like this. There's a wealth of information, but it's not necessarily the easiest to navigate or interpret from a glance. Then there are some weather apps that fly in the face of tradition, like Solar, that are beautifully simple. They give you an idea of what the weather is and what it's going to be, but more insight can be hard to come by. Finally, there are weather apps that merge the best of both of these worlds. My personal favorite is the BBC Weather app. But recently I was introduced to Weathertron, which takes a slightly different approach to displaying the weather. Aggregating weather data from 16 different weather models, Weathertron displays 12 hours of weather in a unique visualizer or infographic at a single glance. Not only do you see the current temperature at the top of the screen, you can also see the expected high and low for the day, when it will hit and everything in between, giving you a minute-by-minute temperature forecast. Additionally, the infographic also displays clouds, rain and snow, making it really to see if there's heavy rain on the way and when it might arrive or that the clouds are going to part and there's sunshine for the rest of the day. With a tap and hold you can scroll round the infographic to find out what the weather will be at an exact point of the day, too. And with a tap on "tomorrow" you'll see the same level of detail for tomorrow's forecast, too. It took me a little while to get used to all the information and how to interpret it, but once you get your head round what you're looking at you realise the depth of information that's on the screen. It's all presented in a really spacious and well-laid-out format that's crisp, clean and uncluttered. With a few taps there's a whole lot more information to be had. Tap on the current forecast temperature to see sunrise and sunset times for the day. Tapping on the graph at the bottom right of the screen will take you to a seven-day forecast with highs and lows, cloud and rain. The way the highs and lows are laid out on the graph makes it easy for you to see straight away the warmest and coolest days coming in the week ahead before you've even looked at the temperatures. It's so simple, but really informative. My only gripe with Weathertron is that you can't have multiple cities lined up to switch between forecasts easily. You need to enter in the name of a city before you can view it. Hopefully Weathertron developers Keming Labs will address this in an upcoming update. Regardless, Weathertron is one of the best weather apps I've used on my iPhone. Which weather app do you use on your iOS device? Let us know in the comments below.
