Alas, the beloved Dark Sky app for Android is going dark itself when its Android version shuts down on July 1. But there are other Android weather apps to pick from, and here are our top picks.
Sadly, there’s probably no future wherein Dark Sky comes back to Android (or Wear OS for that matter) after the service was acquired by Apple back in April, so you’re going to have to find an alternative. The July 1 cutoff date has been set in stone since the weather-tracking company informed its users in its blog post.
Of course, you could always just check Dark Sky's site for its in-browser forecast – that's not going anywhere – but most of us prefer the ease of getting our info straight from an app.
Our list of alternatives includes both paid and free options:, and if it costs money, we've noted how much. Don't worry, they're all nominal fees for yearly subscriptions, so they won't break the bank.
Shadow Weather
Free + $4.99/£4.99 per year
If you're looking for an app close to Dark Sky's features (and draws its forecasts from Dark Sky's API), then Shadow Weather might be your best bet. The weather app has an appropriate dark mode-esque palette, even in its radar imagery, leaving it easy to pull up in the darkest surroundings.
The radar visualization is Shadow Weather's signature, letting you see incremental storm progress and customize visual elements. But you can also track forecasts down to the minute, set up weather alerts, track air quality, and more.
Shadow Weather has an ad-supported free option, or you can pay $4.99/£4.99 for an annual subscription.
Appy Weather
Free + $3.99/£3.99 yearly subscription
If you want an all-around weather app, Appy Weather is a suitable choice, especially if you're looking for a no-fuss solution. Once a Windows Phone app, Appy Weather made its way to Android, where it stands out with a minimalist and simple interface that's easy to navigate. Best of all, its forecasts come from Dark Sky itself.
Looks aside, Appy Weather's features meet basic weather app needs: the daily and weekly forecasts have temperature, what temperature it ‘feels like’, precipitation, cloud cover, visibility, and other info presented on graphs with large, clear text.
There's a free version, of course, which only lets you search for a forecast five times per day. Paying $3.99/£3.99 per year gets rid of that limit as well as adverts, and unlock widgets. The choice is yours, but keep in mind that the service used to retrieve the weather isn’t free, so locking some features behind a subscription model is needed for the app to be sustainable.
Atmosphere Weather
Free + $3.99/£3.69 annual subscription
Atmosphere Weather stands out amid weather apps by displaying the forecast like a 24-hour clock which each hour shown as a segment on the clock face. At a glance, you can tell the next day's weather until this time tomorrow, helpfully broken up in hour-by-hour chunks that are color-coded according to temperature and sky clarity.
The clock face also shows calendar events, though you can also scan the weather via radar view on a separate screen, which also has more in-depth info on wind speed and directions.
The app does have a free version with ads, or you can try the paid version with a two-week free trial to see if the annual $3.99/£3.69 per year subscription is worth it.
CARROT Weather
Free + optional $3.99/£3.39 yearly subscription
CARROT Weather is another app that uses the Dark Sky API to power its forecasts. But instead of the signature dark color palette, Carrot is for the weather app fans who want a bit of snark with their weather updates.
The attitude comes courtesy of an 'AI' that takes care to delivery your forecasts with humor and insults about your weather-related fate. Expect to get lambasted with over 6,000 lines of dialogue, which can be spoken aloud with the app's synthetic voice if you prefer to get berated vocally.
It's not all insults, though: the app also has adorable illustrations and even a game that leads you down a set of clues to discover secret locations, On top of, y'know, giving you hourly and daily forecasts with data on humidity, UV Index, wind speed and more, the app has more personality than other weather apps – and best of all, its base mode is free with ads. For US$3.99/£3.39 per year (or US$0.99/£0.89 per month) you get a customizable widget, animated satellite maps, and no more advertisements.
Climendo
$3.99/£3.49
Climendo is yet another app to use Dark Sky's data – but it doesn't stop there, as its forecasts ingest data from a litany of other weather providers, including AccuWeather, Weather Underground, NOAA, Met Office, Foreca, and more. It will only consider the most accurate info near your location, though.
Climendo's reports are presented in either hourly or 10-day forecasts with the likelihood of their accuracy considering their combined sources. You can also opt to scan individual forecasts from each weather provider instead.
While it doesn't have some of the more detailed info found in other weather apps, like humidity and UV index, the combined info makes it less reliant on the accuracy of any particular service over another – which is particularly helpful for the crowdsource aficionados out there.
No comments:
Post a Comment