Weather Gods 3.3 Released

By Weather Gods (Scott), 27 August, 2021

Forum
iOS and iPadOS

Hi,

Dropping by to let you know we have released an update to Weather Gods.

There are many changes and bug fixes but the highlights are:

1. Weather Alerts are now available on the Apple Watch Weather Gods app
2. We have upgraded to Apple's new watchos7 complications which means there are many new complications and you can configure multiple Weather Gods complications on the same watch face.
3. We have lots more widgets; including weather conditions, precipitation chart, snow chart; 72 hour pressure chart, wind chart, heat and humidity and wind conditions. All of our charts are accessible with Voiceover.

Some notes on the new complications.

These can be configured using the Watch App on your iPhone or by editing the complication slots for the face on your watch.

In both cases you will find a new section "Weather Gods" filled with many different types of complications. You can add more than one of our complications to your watch face, and I have tried to resolve some of the VoiceOver issues that previously occurred when adding complications to the Infograph sub-dial top and the bezel. It's still not perfect but hopefully better than last time.

In other news, I have started work on migrating our weather notification platform from IBM to Amazon AWS, especially as IBM have given notice they will soon start to shutdown services we use. I hope to have this completed by the end of September.

I have also began working on the next version of Weather Gods which will include a new subscription tier called the Extended forecast.

I hope to provide the following as part of the extended forecast:
- 14 days of weather throughout the app; Pantheon, Weather Wheel, Timelines and Moon data.
- Air Quality on the Pantheon and Weather Wheel
- A dedicated Air Quality widget that will provide more detailed data such as ozone, particle matter, carbon monoxide, nitrogen dioxide and sulphur dioxide
- Air Quality on the Apple Watch and a dedicated Air Quality watch complication
- Minute data for the next two hours. This will indicate precipitation and snow accumulation, giving start and stop times.
- Air Quality and more frequent precipitation notifications - once I have moved from IBM to the Amazon AWS platform.

I would welcome feedback on the pricing as well please. Here's my current thinking (which may change):

1. Premium is $2.99 per month
2. Extended which includes premium is $3.99 per month

I will also make the Extended forecast available as a separate bolt on for $1.49 per month. This allows grandfathered users to gain access to the extended forecast and also for users who don't want or need the premium plan.

Thoughts?

Finally, many thanks to all our testers and translators for their help with the app, for what has been quite a long development cycle.

Kind regards
Scott

Options

Comments

By Jimmy V on Wednesday, August 25, 2021 - 04:38

Thanks so much Scott for making the best weather app around!
Keep up the great work

By tyler chambliss on Wednesday, August 25, 2021 - 04:38

Sounds good. Also if possible a hurricane tracker. It's hurricane season in the Atlantic and I really haven't been able to find a good hurricane tracker that works with VoiceOver. The one by JRuston apps used to tell you where the storm was, example, The storm is 100 miles west of Cuba and is 1000 miles from you. Now all it says is just the latitude and longitude which is no good because we can't see the maps and most of us aren't geologists... Lol.

By Dennis Long on Wednesday, August 25, 2021 - 04:38

Hi Scott I will pay the $1.49 gladly. Your pricing is more then fair. This is the one and only weather app I will use. Thanks for making it awesome!!!

By Dawn 👩🏻‍🦯 on Wednesday, August 25, 2021 - 04:38

Hi, Scott!

As per usual, you've done an awesome job! I'm glad that I can help be a part of the process, and, I'm excited to be an even bigger part of the process with Ipad-OS. 15!
As usual, keep up the fabulous work! :-)

I do have a question about the air quality. Well, 2 questions actually.

1. Will that include allergy info such as pollen, mold, etc etc? Will it include the type of pollen and or mold? For example, will it say something like:

pollen level: 10.0 high
predominit pollens are: ragweed, grass

If so, YAY!! Because I like a lot of people on here I'm sure, are tortured by Mother Nature using allergy and sinus issues as her weapon of choice. Plus, as you can imagine, some pollens give me more grief than others.

2. Will there be an option to set an alert for this? If not, could that be possible in the future? If it will be an option when it's rolled out, then DOUBLE YAY!! Because I had a service that used to tell me when the pollen was high by sending me an alert through my email. While it wasn't an app, it was accessible and could be read using my braille device. Sadly, I ended up canceling the subscription a few years back, because it had turned inaccessible on their site and emails. And sadly, when I downloaded the app for this service to give them another shot when I got my Ipad, it was the same. So, it'd be nice to know if the pollen will be high that day, or even if there's an air quality alert.
If it's not possible for whatever reason, I understand. But, I have been looking for an accessible allergy and pollen forecast app, and, have yet to find one in the 5 years I have owned an Ipad. If any allergy/air quality feature or app would be accessible with VoiceOver, it would definitely be yours! Then, I could have my dream goal, of having just ONE weather app on my Ipad for every thing. :-)

By Weather Gods (Scott) on Wednesday, August 25, 2021 - 04:38

Hi Dawn,

Unfortunately this will just be Air Quality initially, I would love to add pollen but I need to figure out the data costs - it's quite expensive.

By Dawn 👩🏻‍🦯 on Wednesday, August 25, 2021 - 04:38

In reply to by Weather Gods (Scott)

Ok. Thank you! I'd love that too!

It's quite a shame that the costs for that are so enxpensive. :-(

O well, I'm still happy about the AQ. and the minute-by-minute forecasts... YAY! That'll be wonderful for severe weather season! :-)

By Kelly Pierce on Wednesday, August 25, 2021 - 04:38

The word “force” appears in front of numbers used to express wind speed. This is weird and should be eliminated.

Kelly

By Weather Gods (Scott) on Saturday, September 25, 2021 - 04:38

Hi Kelly

Do you have the Beaufort scale toggled on in the unit settings?

By Cowboy on Saturday, September 25, 2021 - 04:38

In the US, I don’t know if there is anything like this in other countries, you can find and read the Scientific Forecast discussion from the closest National Weather Service office. These often give more insight into the forecast, and I enjoy reading them.

Also, I emailed you about this three years ago, but I would like to be able to see my personal weather station’s reports on the app. At the time, you couldn’t do it, and I was left with using Weather Underground or the weather station’s app. Since then, the Weather Underground app has become less accessible.

By Weather Gods (Scott) on Saturday, September 25, 2021 - 04:38

Hi Cowboy

Personal weather stations are still on my list, but not near the top at the moment.

By Jo Billard on Saturday, September 25, 2021 - 04:38

It keeps crashing for me. I can't get it to work at all, and then my phone asks for my passcode. I'm just about ready to delete the app.

By roman on Saturday, September 25, 2021 - 04:38

Hey there. I have just installed the app and paid $29 annual for your great work. Thanks for creating this awesome app which literally gives you feelings of what kind of weather we're going to have. I was hearing about this application for a while now, then I was like let me try it. And really, it is not disappointing!

By Ekaj on Saturday, September 25, 2021 - 04:38

Scott, thanks as always for your great work on this app. I think your app in combination with the updated native weather app in iOS will be a win-win situation for all. I'm still a beta tester, but your app is working so well on my phone that I might just download it outright. Do I need to uninstall the beta version first though? Thanks once again for all that you do for the community.

By Holger Fiallo on Saturday, September 25, 2021 - 04:38

Using beta and is a great app for the watch and phone. Using Series 5 with current watchOS and iPhone 12 pro and iOS 14.7.1. Only issue I have is when I go to my complication it takes 2 seconds for voiceover to read it. Great job and the beta version is stable. Never had a crash on the atch or phone so far.

By Jo Billard on Saturday, September 25, 2021 - 04:38

I got it fixed. I don't know how but it's working properly. The music seems to be different, I like it.

By Weather Gods (Scott) on Saturday, September 25, 2021 - 04:38

Hi Holger,

Not sure why VoiceOver is taking a couple of seconds to read the complication data. Does it only happen the first time or is it slow if you swipe back over it?

By Weather Gods (Scott) on Saturday, September 25, 2021 - 04:38

Hi Ekaj,

You're welcome to carry on with the beta, we have got some interesting features approaching:

- 14 day weather (in the latest beta)
- Air Quality
- Minute forecast for the next two hours
- Migration to our Amazon AWS notification services
- Extended astronomy (maybe); twilight, nautical, civil, moon notifications
- Large widget for iPad

By Weather Gods (Scott) on Saturday, September 25, 2021 - 04:38

Hi Jo,

Glad it's working now. Not sure what the passcode thing was about though.

By Weather Gods (Scott) on Saturday, September 25, 2021 - 04:38

Thanks Roman, much appreciated.

By Holger Fiallo on Saturday, September 25, 2021 - 04:38

In reply to by Weather Gods (Scott)

Yes. If I go to another complication and go back to wg it does sane. I notice this in all complications.