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> apps like Carrot Weather, Craft, and Flighty I find to be a generally superior experience to the $3 single-purchase apps that they generally replaced Not sur

> apps like Carrot Weather, Craft, and Flighty I find to be a generally superior experience to the $3 single-purchase apps that they generally replaced Not sure about the last 2 but a weather app is a simple problem that needs to be solved once and then never messed with again - I would personally prefer my weather app not to be constantly updated. The last thing I want is the UI on my weather app to change all the time. I don't go buy a new screwdriver or hammer despite newer and slightly better models being available unless the existing one breaks or stops being compatible (let's say a new kind of screw/nail became mainstream). I want the same from my utility apps. The collection of weather data itself is a different task but that's something that's already often done by governments and given away for free (as we pay for it indirectly via taxes).

noirbot 4y ago
But they're not changing the UI regularly for the most part, they're offering new and more convenient optional UI elements that are useful. Or providing good Day-1 support for new OS notification features or new options on Apple Watch. It also helps pay for their use of those weather data and forecasting APIs, some of the more effective of which are private and paid APIs. And that's totally ignoring that almost nothing, especially in mobile apps can just be "written once and never updated". APIs change, new sizes of device come out...
layer8 4y ago
What you pay for isn’t generally updates to the app, but the service of sourcing, processing and consolidating the weather data for the way it is presented by the app. I use three different weather apps (only one of them with a subscription, $1 per year) because each has unique aspects of its data and presentation that are useful depending on the use case. One of them has diagrams combining forecasts from 20 different data sources for the next week (which gives a nice overview of the spread of forecasts for each day), sources which I don’t think are all free.

noirbot 4y ago

But they're not changing the UI regularly for the most part, they're offering new and more convenient optional UI elements that are useful. Or providing good Day-1 support for new OS notification features or new options on Apple Watch. It also helps pay for their use of those weather data and forecasting APIs, some of the more effective of which are private and paid APIs. And that's totally ignoring that almost nothing, especially in mobile apps can just be "written once and never updated". APIs change, new sizes of device come out...

layer8 4y ago

What you pay for isn’t generally updates to the app, but the service of sourcing, processing and consolidating the weather data for the way it is presented by the app. I use three different weather apps (only one of them with a subscription, $1 per year) because each has unique aspects of its data and presentation that are useful depending on the use case. One of them has diagrams combining forecasts from 20 different data sources for the next week (which gives a nice overview of the spread of forecasts for each day), sources which I don’t think are all free.