Predicting the weather is a notoriously difficult affair. While the technology used to predict what the weather will do has improved greatly over the years, as has the end result, it is a well known fact that trusting the weatherman is still not the easiest thing in the world to do.
As is the case with so many things these days, finding out what the weather has in store for you is just a case of picking up your iPhone or iPad and checking one of the plethora of apps, including Apple’s own built-in solution. Powered by Yahoo!, Apple’s weather app is no worse, nor no better than any of the competition. It does what it is supposed to, at least most of the time.
With so many weather apps available on the App Store, deciding which to choose is never an easy thing. With so many free and paid solutions knocking around, where do you start, and which do you opt for?
One weather app is aiming to differentiate itself from the competition by trying to offer more accurate, hourly weather forecasts using its own technology rather than opting to pull data from Yahoo!, or another of the large weather forecasters. It’s also a paid app, and at $3.99 it is one of the more expensive weather apps in the App Store, making it less of an impulse buy and more something that needs explaining in order to justify that price tag.
The app itself is called Dark Sky, and according to the app’s iTunes App Store description it aims to offer more accurate, short-term predictions instead of a five day forecast.
Using GPS, Dark Sky is able to create forecasts for your precise location. And because Dark Sky focuses on the next hour, we are able to give you minute-to-minute predictions.
The biggest downside to Dark Sky is undoubtedly its largest limitation. As accurate as it may be, and as different as it is, if you live outside the United States then it is completely useless. Unfortunately, that decision to not use a standard weather forecasting system has left the app with limited availability. By being unable to predict the weather outside the US, Dark Sky makes itself useless for most.
But if you do happen to be in the United States, Dark Sky offers something just different enough to warrant a look.
Download Dark Sky for iPhone, iPad and iPod touch [iTunes link]
Be sure to check out our iPhone Apps Gallery and iPad Apps Gallery to explore more apps for your iPhone, iPad and iPod touch.
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