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WeatherPro adds widgets and more for iOS
WeatherPro has always been a top-flight weather app, and the latest iOS update adds some nice features like widgets, worldwide webcams and customizable info. The US$1.99 app comes from the MeteoGroup in Germany, but I find their U.S. coverage excellent and detailed. The forecasts have been solid in older versions, and I expect the same in this rewritten iOS iteration. The user interface is tunable, letting you view things like the forecast as a graph. There are animated satellite maps of the USA, Austrailia and most of Europe. You can choose an unlimited number of favorite locations, and the app can find your current location automatically. WeatherPro also can interface with personal weather stations via Netamo. Using this new version is simple, but help is included if needed. Different features are available from a menu at the bottom of the screen (weather, maps, favorites etc) and you bring them up with a tap. WeatherPro is incredibly complete, including things like mountain and hiking forecasts, animated radar and cloud maps, UV indexes and water temperatures. Hourly forecast details are there for the next two weeks. New to iOS 8 is widget support. If you pull down your iPhone notification menu, and tap the Edit link, you can see which installed apps support widgets. WeatherPro is among them, so you can get things like current temperatures, wind speeds and and a forecast with a single flick to the Notification Center. Once you get used to it, you will use it all the time. The new for iOS 8 Windtheme feature (part of a premium subscription in-app purchase) lets you change the entire GUI to focus on winds. Wind direction and speed become visible on every app page, along with forecasts for the best times for winds -- perfect for windsurfers, pilot, kite flyers, and more. Webcams that are nearby can be located, but basically the app opens an internal browser and you get images from a third party provider complete with some junky ads. I'd like to see that part of WeatherPro improved. I also think the overall look of the app could be a little more modern and reflective of the best design cues from iOS 8. There is a lot of data to display, but it's not the prettiest presentation of weather data I've seen. Still, WeatherPro is well named. It has more well organized data than any weather app I've seen. It's feature rich, and somewhat customizable. A premium subscription is $1.99 for 3 months or $5.99 for a year. The app requires iOS 7 or later. If I was a real weather buff and could only choose one weather app to have on my iPhone, WeatherPro would be it.
WeatherPro for iOS has a wealth of weather details
Oh no! Another weather app. Actually, I'm thrilled at all the competition. WeatherPro has a great deal of information, far more than I see in most other weather apps. It is also very graphical in its approach, and a quick glance will show you a lot about the area your are interested in. WeatherPro for iPhone is on sale for US$1.99 (regular $3.99), and the iPad version is $2.99 (normally $4.99). [Note: Sale prices have ended] Of course WeatherPro has a seven-day forecast with dynamic short-term forecasts, 2 million reporting locations from almost anywhere in the world, alerts and warning for extreme weather, sunrise and sunset time (a detail many apps leave out) and animated radar and satellite maps that are zoomable. It also features iCloud sync if you are running the app on multiple iOS devices, no limit to the number of locations you can display and the ability to use GPS to figure out your current location so you don't have to look it up. %Gallery-194022% The app is quite complete, but there are premium options for European customers that include a 14-day forecast, lightning strike plots, ski and beach weather and higher-resolution images. The additional data options are $5.99 and $1.99 depending on the mix of information you want. I don't think the extra purchase is necessary, and US buyers will find the app very complete as it is. I put the app through its paces and found it responsive and easy to read. It found every small town and obscure location I gave it, which backs up the claims of millions of locations. The satellite maps and radar maps displayed smoothly. I also liked a little feature that lets you email or send someone a text of your current conditions. If you have a backyard weather station from Netatmo, the app supports getting data from it. WeatherPro is well-named. It has a lot of info and is a complete weather solution. WeatherPro requires iOS 5 and is optimized for the iPhone 5.
Kindle, Evernote, Vimeo and more get optimized for the iPad's Retina display
As we saw the iPhone 4's release, a massive bump in screen resolution means that plenty of apps need to be updated to fully take advantage of all those extra pixels, and today has seen a few big name ones get optimized for the new iPad's Retina display. The biggest of those is Amazon's Kindle app, which now promises sharper fonts than ever, along with a few other changes including the ability to switch between books stored on your device and in the cloud. Also getting a Retina-friendly update is Evernote, which offers improved text editing in addition to the display tweak, plus the otherwise unchanged Vimeo, and Weather Pro, which now boasts high-resolution maps. Of course, those are just among the first of many -- we're guessing you won't have to wait too long for most of your favorites to be similarly updated.Update: Twitter for iOS and Infinity Blade II (pic after the break) are also among the apps getting high res iPad makeovers just in time, let us know in the comments below about any others that appear.
