Weather Apps - Dark Sky, Hello Weather, and more

January 16, 2020

I seem to try, and pay for, almost every new iPhone weather app.

Weather is an essential function of my iPhone, I’d say number 3 after and

  • Morning check, what the lies ahead today
  • Making sure kids dressed appropriately for going to school and walking home
  • Preparation for upcoming storms
  • Intra-day rain forecast, “if I wait 10 minutes to walk to my car the rain will have stopped”
  • Weather Push-Alerts, National Weather Service Winter Storm Warnings
  • Week outlook, “I can mow the grass on Saturday when it is mild and dry”
  • Watch Complications for temperature and quick forecast on my wrist

I have tried, paid-for/subscribed, and liked

Most of these, if not all, use forecast data from Dark Sky so the differences don’t really have anything to do with the accuracy of the forecast. Mostly it is about user interface, being able to quickly and easily accomplish the above functions. All the while minimizing noise, clutter, and complication.

I keep coming back to Dark Sky.

Dark Sky meets all the feature requirements, has a solid, uncluttered interface, and push notifications. Carrot Weather was close, but I found it had too much information and felt cluttered. Weather Line is nice, and the line metaphor is great, but I found it took too many taps to get the location I wanted to see. Hello Weather is almost perfect, better user interface than Dark Sky, but it lacks advanced features like push notifications.

So back to Dark Sky, but the itch is never scratched, so even now I am experimenting with two apps - Hello Weather for everyday use, Dark Sky kept in background for push notifications. I get the pleasant, straightforward, colorful interface of Hello Weather, with the reliable notifications from Dark Sky.

So far so good.

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