We’re not statisticians here at The Manual, but based on our own independent research, we know that there are approximately a zillion different weather apps for your iPhone. With such a large selection of great apps both free and paid, you have no excuse to stick with the native iOS weather application. It’s boring, lacks features, and just sucks in general.
If you care about good design, download Partly Cloudy. It’s only two bucks, and it’s hands down the most gorgeous and well-designed app we’ve ever laid our eyes on. Rather than displaying the forecast in a series of boring tiles or a torrent of numbers, it makes use of a simple infographic to tell you the weather.
On just one screen, Partly cloudy displays all the weather info you need without being even the slightest bit confusing. Through some clever and intuitive graphic design, Raureif managed to display all this data in a way that isn’t cluttered or hard to navigate. In fact it’s quite the contrary – even with so much information in one spot, the arrangement of the data makes it easier to absorb than any other weather application we’ve tried.
The app’s readout is something like an info-laden clock face, so with just a glance you can see not only what the weather is currently like outside, but also what it’ll be like at any point in the day. Everything – temperature, precipitation, wind force, cloud conditions, even sunrise and sunset – it’s all there, ready for your brain to absorb in just a second or two. With a quick tap on the bottom right corner of the screen, you can quickly switch between 12-hour, 24-hour, and 7-day forecasts; and another button at the top right allows you to switch locations. If you don’t mind giving up your GPS coordinates, Partly Cloudy can even track your location and give you updated forecasts wherever you go.
Get your hands on it in the App Store, or head over to Partly Cloudy’s website to learn more.
