The iPhone has a remarkable number of weather app options, and you'll find a ton that suit different needs depending on what you want. That said, one shines brighter than the rest, and Accuweather is one of the best full-featured weather apps on the store.
Platform: iPhone
Price: Free
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Features
Current weather, hourly forecasts, and 15-day forecast.
Real-time severe weather alerts.
Calendar integration for 15-day forecasts.
Animated radar and satellite.
Lifestyle forecasts that include conditions for dog walking, barbecuing, golfing,
and more.
Health forecasts that include conditions for allergies, migraines, asthma, and more.
Where it excels
Accuweather manages to push a lot of relevant information in your face on the first screen without being too overwhelming. You get the current temperature, the "RealFeel" temperature, wind, and a brief forecast immediately. That's what really matters, but if you want to dig in deeper, Accuweather has one-swipe access to hourly forecasts, a week long forecast, and of course a full map. If you're a weather junkie it packs in everything you could possibly want. If you're not, it gives you the information that matters quickly and easily. Especially handy is the ability to add the forecast directly to you calendar so you don't need to pop open Accuweather all the time.
Where it falls short
You'll find a lot of information packed on the screen, and that makes it a little cluttered when you're just trying to quickly glance at something. The ads are also a little annoying, but at least you can opt out of them for an in-app purchase of $1.99.
The competition
There are a ton of excellent weather apps on the iPhone that suit different needs. Want a full doppler radar? Sure, that's doable. Prefer something minimal? You have options. Want one that only notifies you about bad weather? Yep, that exists too. All of these are worth checking out to see if they fit your specific needs.
If Accuweather isn't your thing, three other big free apps, The Weather Channel, WeatherBug, and Weather Underground are fantastic alternatives. Both have the same basic feature set as Accuweather (including the ads), but offer slightly different experiences in terms of interface and coverage. The fact is, different apps might have more accurate forecasts than others for your area, so it's worth playing around with a few to see which works best for you.
Today Weather (99¢) may very well be one of the best weather apps around, but even at only 99¢ it's tough to justify paying for a weather app when free alternatives exist. That said, if you like the features of Accuweather, Weather Underground, or the Weather Channel, but hate the ads, then Today Weather is worth a look.
Dark Sky ($3.99) offers an entirely different kind of experience for iPhone. Instead of worrying about forecasting everything, it concentrates on hyperlocal, small time increments. Essentially, it'll let you know if it's going to rain (or snow) within the next hour or so. If you're the type to live more in the moment, Dark Sky is one of the best at short-term forecasts (and alerts).
If you're more a fan of minimalist weather apps, you have a few solid options. Blue is a great little app that shows you the forecast for the next day or so in a handy color coded index. Sun is actually a free webapp designed specifically for the iPhone and uses gestures for control.Weather Neue (free) shows simplified current weather and a four-day forecast in a lovely package. Finally, Partly Cloudy might be the prettiest of the bunch by using the visualization of a clock to show you the weather forecast in a suprisingly intuitive way.
Data source: Lifehacker (By Thorin Klosowsk)
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