A simple search on Dribbble reveals boatloads of prototypes that feature this icon set. I’m not a huge fan of these, but it could be that I’m just overloaded. Climacons and APIsĪdam Whitcroft is the creator of Climacons and arguably the main conduit that spurred this explosion of “flat” weather apps. Therefore, if both design and data matter, what are the choices for having both, and what enables us to get there? Outside (among others) suffered from this, so its slow death was inevitable. It’s the one type of app in which developers can’t afford to blow it with bad information. Īnother huge hurdle to success with weather apps is offering accurate data. There are various reasons that the flow of updates slows to a crawl, mainly poor sales from a lack of customer interest, but your app is guaranteed to drop into an early grave if you leave a buggy mess on the table. These are two examples of apps that are nicely designed but have a different set of problems, chief among them are updates and data.įair or not, the one fatal flaw of an iOS developer is not shipping updates. Outside was initially a hit as was WeatherSnitch. Over the last handful of years, we’ve seen plenty of beautifully designed apps released. You could argue that TWC’s app has some of the best data out there, but that’s meaningless if it’s not properly presented. For instance, The Weather Channel’s app has been around for ages, so why the sudden influx of other third-party additions? It’s simple in my mind: people don’t like ugly applications. Some of these apps have been around since the iOS SDK was first made available. But why? Why are there so many weather-related apps out there? I’m not sure we can explicitly nail that down, but we can attempt to determine a way to wade through these waters. Mockups on Dribbble, apps in the Store available to download, web apps - complex and simple they’re everywhere you look. You’ve probably tried your fair share of weather apps, which seem to be flooding in non-stop. (If you ship the 27th todo app we’ve seen this month, you’re quickly written off.) The newest genre to hit this iOS app trend is weather, which is both a good and bad phenomenon. Developers that are late to the game get ignored. People pick sides, and opinions are formed and defended. Then, personal bias begins to play up when the initial boom of these apps slows down. In fact, there are people that still cringe at the thought of seeing another icon with a checkmark front and center. I’m sure you all remember the Twitter app explosion icons designed with every kind of communication metaphor imaginable came exploding onto the scene. Without warning, various genres of iOS apps will suddenly propagate the App Store in bursts.
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