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What's so special with minimalweather.com?
- at-fates-hands 14y agothe live tiles on my windows 7 phone does this actually for several apps (shows up to date info), including my weather app.
- shawabawa3 14y agoSo the icon shows what the weather was the previous time you ran it? Maybe I'm misunderstanding it but it seems like an anti-feature to me.
- elcuervo 14y agoEvery time you enter the app the icon reflects the weather. The idea behind the site itself it's to show how to 'hack' the icon to reflect stuff.
- corin_ 14y agoIt's not really hacking the icon, even in inverted commas - it's simply using the feature that allows you to specify the icon.
- koeselitz 14y agoThe thing is that Apple has not so far allowed really and truly dynamic icons on the home screen. This bothers some of us, since we'd like to have some notifications or displays visible from that screen. This is neat because it allows that, although in a limited way.
- ndespres 14y agoYes. I already have a weather icon on my iPhone that doesn't show the actual weather until I open it. Right now it tells me it's 73 and sunny!
- jes5199 14y agoyeah, that annoys me. The calendar shows the current date! Why doesn't the weather icon show real weather? Or at least, not fake weather.
- qq66 14y agoOne possible reason is that the calendar date can be computed locally, the weather would require a data pull which needs to be scheduled, cached, battery managed, etc...
- zzzmarcus 14y agoThere's an app that'll show you the temperature in realtime on the icon without the need to open the app. It's called eWeather HD and uses the notifications feature of iOS in a pretty clever way. The app itself is a little obtuse, but having the temperature right there has made it worthwhile to me. http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/eweather-hd-weather-forecast/id401533966?mt=8 http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/eweather-hd-weather-forecast/...
- ChrisClark 14y agoI've just realized how impossible it would be for me to live without widgets on the home screen. I've been taking them for granted it seems.
- booticon 14y agoMy understanding of it is that they're working within the constraints of WebKit in iOS. Developers aren't able to update the icon in realtime, but if you have a homescreen webapp it can update the icon each time you launch it. This is a nice workaround, since I used to launch my homescreen weather app every ten minutes, and chances are the temperature hasn't changed much since the last time I checked. I say "used to" because I use the Weather widget in Notification Center.
- thereallurch 14y agoIs there something I am missing? Why would you be checking the weather so often? I agree that this is a novel use of a site icon, but it has limited (minimal) advantages.
- booticon 14y agoFor me apps like this can fall into habitual use, almost approaching muscle memory, e.g. checking e-mail/Twitter.
- cnlwsu 14y agominimalweather 2.0: I like to call it "window" :)
- Argorak 14y agoHm? My window provides an experience rather close to reality, except the 'getting soaked by summer rain' part. I wouldn't call that 'minimal'. Maybe your window is broken. Does it run iOS, Android or WP7?
- fcoury 14y agoIf you're using Chrome, the Currently extension is a must: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/ojhmphdkpgbibohbnpbfiefkgieacjmh?hl=en https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/ojhmphdkpgbibohbnp... When you open a new tab, it'll show you current time and weather forecast: http://f.cl.ly/items/1X373t2P143f0j1I3a3R/Screen%20Shot%202012-07-25%20at%201.14.51%20PM.png http://f.cl.ly/items/1X373t2P143f0j1I3a3R/Screen%20Shot%2020... Nice typography, choose from 3 color schemes and whatnot.
- pavel_lishin 14y agoI prefer More Interestingness* - I have a clock on my machine already, and I rarely need to know the weather every time I load a new tab. https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/ngddmdmkjnnefgggjnnnepijkcighifa https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/ngddmdmkjnnefgggjn...
- mgurlitz 14y agoThat link goes to Currently still. Here's More Interestingness: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/ngddmdmkjnnefgggjnnnepijkcighifa https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/ngddmdmkjnnefgggjn...
- pavel_lishin 14y agoOops - thanks!
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- Lexarius 14y agoFor some reason I'm really bothered by the fact that it's locked to Fahrenheit if you're in the US. At least give me a query parameter or something.
- elcuervo 14y agoThat's fair. I didn't figured out a way to keep a clean UI and switch unit. Will add a query param and think something for the interface. Thank you for the feedback.
- rpicard 14y agoOn the other side of that, I'm in the U.S. but I use a VPN in Sweden so I can only see it in Celsius. It might be cool if you could click the text, "20 ºC," to switch between the two.
- gamache 14y agoWeather Live has been doing this for quite some time; I wouldn't call this "so special". It's not an enviable feature. Right now I am in San Jose and I can see what the temperature was in Boston last time I launched the app.
- MatthewPhillips 14y agoThey took a simple feature and hacked it to its limits, I'd say that's pretty cool.
- jklein24 14y agoVery cool that you got this to work in iOS, but you know what else is special? Android widgets.
- napillo 14y agoDoesn't work for me, it must think I am in San Francisco. I'm in Phoenix and the weather here is 92f not 61f.
- knowaveragejoe 14y agoUgh... minimal doesn't have to mean useless. In my mind you could display four times as many stats about the weather and still be a far cry from the clutter-fuck that is weather.com. As it is this is useless for anybody who wants to know anything beyond "is it hot or cold right now."
- pmelendez 14y agoStill this is enough for some people (like me) who just want to see the current temperature. There are plenty of sites/apps that do what you said so no need to tag this one as 'useless'.
- drewsears 14y agoCan I specify a zip code? I went to it on my desktop and my phone, and both show different, wrong temperatures.
- drewsears 14y agoHaving to open the app to update the weather rather defeats its utility.
- retube 14y agoI never understood the point of a service that tells you the weather where you are.
- jpastika 14y agoI think the value here isn't really displaying weather. I believe the author effectively demonstrates an interesting technique that non-native apps can utilize to make them feel more native. As far as awesome and simple non-native weather apps go, check out: http://pattern.dk/sun/ http://pattern.dk/sun/
- nachteilig 14y agoSeems like a decent use for iPad since we still (!?) don't have the built-in iOS app.
- dcadenas 14y agoIt's great!
- anupj 14y agoNothing.
- laserDinosaur 14y agoI don't get it. My Android has a widget on my homepage that shows me the current weather for my location, updated live. Is that all this is doing?
- angrydev 14y agoNo, in fact this particular implementation will only update the icon AFTER you load the page (from what I can gather anyway). Not sure why that is valuable. It may also be pertinent to note that there are no widgets for iOS, so something as basic as live weather becomes a bit of a chore.
- nivla 14y agoYes but less. You see iOS does not have desktop widgets like android/windows, so this is a creative way to show the updates within the app icon.
- pooriaazimi 14y agoThere's a live weather widget in the notification center for iPhone. Shame it's only for weather and stocks, and developers can't use it. We can of course hope it would change in iOS 7... Along with a better inter-app communication system.
- cmelbye 14y agoIf you look at the screenshot of the home screen, you'll notice that this is not an Android device and thus has no Android widgets. So, no, that's not "all this is doing".
- Killswitch 14y ago"But my Android can do it, why can't the iPhone, another reason why Apple sucks!" :rollseyes
- laserDinosaur 14y agoWell, I did mean it as an actual question. I didn't know Apple didn't have widgets (or something similar)
- pooriaazimi 14y agoReally beautiful. Suggestion: Add city name. I know you don't want to clutter the interface, thus the name minimalist weather, but it makes me nervous to look at a screen and hope it has determined my location accurately. It makes me skeptical about the results too, as I didn't get any notifications on OS X Lion saying "minimalistweather.com wants to use your location". Also it displayed a gorgeous "25 degrees", while OS X's weather widget says "29 degrees"...
- elcuervo 14y agoThank you for you feedback. I'll add that feature along with other ones. Show and correct city and change from C to F.
- pooriaazimi 14y agoThanks. But make ˚C -> ˚F an option! Many of us don't have the faintest idea what 100˚F is (I must multiply it with 5, divide it by 9 and subtract 32 or 23 from it... too much work)! (as a side note: for the benefit of others, ˚ is typed with option-k. I had to try a million different combination until I found it).
- drivebyacct2 14y agoThe really, really, really poor man's widget. What's the point if it's showing me stale data? If it's been so long that I can't remember the temperature, I'm going to have to launch the app anyway.
- pooriaazimi 14y agoI think it's more of a neat hack, not a replacement for anything.
- PaulHoule 14y agoi badly want weather radar that doesn't suck
- recampbell 14y agoI think http://fullscreenweather.com http://fullscreenweather.com is pretty good.
- Erwin 14y agoCute hack, remindining me of "Defender of the Favicon": http://www.p01.org/releases/DEFENDER_of_the_favicon/ http://www.p01.org/releases/DEFENDER_of_the_favicon/ Which is a JS version of Defender that displays wherever your browser displays the sites favorite icon.
- dfc 14y agoNine times out of ten I want to know the weather X hours from now, not the current weather or the weather Y hours in the past.
- rogerbinns 14y agoThere is an excellent widget on Android that shows the weather for the next 24 hours which does exactly this. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=net.veierland.aix https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=net.veierland....
- startupmum 14y agoVery nice as a hack. I am not sure about the usability of it, and a lot of the comments already capture that. If you really wanted to hack this, how about the following: 1. You package it as an app (not that hard to do, from where you'll be starting) 2. You let people set parameters for how often they want to be notified, for which city and in which scale 3. You use the push notification feature to push them the notifications as per their settings. But all that's just trying to create the better weather app/notifier. And there's tons of ways to do that. What you've done is really cool with the icon becoming the widget, and for that, it is a great idea. Makes me think what else you could be using this hack for - not just weather. Imagine sponsorship space - share icon space with main advertiser for a content app. Or display your high score in a game. Or show the last badge you earned in a gamified app....the possibilities are endless. Very cool hack!
- badclient 14y agoIs there a weather app that shows me the weather right now relative to the weather at the same time yesterday? I don't know about you guys but I always evaluate weather in relative terms("it's cooler than yesterday morning") and yet most apps just throw the temperature at you...which could be wildly deceiving depending on wind etc.
- magicalist 14y agoIt's not an app (or at least, it isn't a standalone feature of an app), but if you search on wolfram alpha, it usually provides a handy graph for the past. I'm always wondering the same thing as well. eg http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=weather+san+francisco http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=weather+san+francisco and hit "more" when the "Weather history & forecast" section shows up. I don't know how permanent this URL is, but here's the result I get from that: http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/pod.jsp?id=MSP32441a2b0ia1c88ff8d5000047d3gfiiag46gh6c&s=8&button=1 http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/pod.jsp?id=MSP32441a2b0ia1... I would love to see a better interface on that data as a standalone app.
- Cd00d 14y agoI've tried a lot of weather apps, and my favorite, by far, is eWeatherHD. It does just what you're asking - with a last 24 hour trace of temp and barometric pressure. It will also show you the next 12 hours of temp, what temp it feels like, chance precip, UV index, and other things. Not affiliated in any way, but really appreciate all the details in this app, and was annoyed at all the app purchases I'd made that only showed a portion of what I wanted to know. I also like the sunrise/set, moonrise/set, moon phase info. I only miss tide info, but am not at the beach that often anyway.
- upinsmoke 14y agoIf you use iPhone/iPad, Thermo (http://thermo.me http://thermo.me) does exactly that for temperature. Temperature right now and temperature 24 hours ago.
- jpswade 14y agoThis will be great on my blackberry, all the other free weather apps out there suck.
- RandallBrown 14y agoPretty clever to generate the image for the app icon. I did a similar thing where I converted a screenshot of a bus schedule to a data URI and saved it to my homescreen. I did it so I could check the bus schedule in places without service.