Tag: Simplistic »

In this day and age where just about any amount of information can be acquired anywhere with a few screen taps, some can often forget that it’s the information itself that’s most important. Sometimes the relevant data can be hidden behind several menus or overly complicated interfaces, resulting in a delay of acquisition or even users flat out giving up on their inquiry. It’s nice then to see that apps such as Weather Neue are still out there. Because sometimes I just want to know if it’s going to rain in the evening.

Weather Neue is, quite simply (and literally), an app that displays the weather. Locations are gleaned from the iOS device’s GPS, and the current temperature and weather conditions are displayed. Location, precipitation, wind speed and direction, and a three day forecast with highs and lows are the only other bits of information shown. Settings can be adjusted to switch between metric (Celsius) and non-metric (Fahrenheit), and users can toggle between four different display themes until they find one they prefer. My theme of choice is Cloudy.

Weather Neue is perfect for anyone who just wants to see what it’s like outside, or what tomorrow will look like. There are no extraneous bits of information to dig for and no menus to fight through. It’s just the weather. The app starts up quickly and displays the pertinent information prominently in the center of the screen with no need for the user to do anything, really. Giving the device a shake to refresh the info is about as complicated as it gets. The clean and simple visuals do well to round out the package with instantly recognizable icons and helpful text that’s just big enough to stand out but small enough so that it doesn’t obscure anything or fight other visual elements for attention.

As perfect as such a simple weather app may be, Weather Neue does have one potential drawback in that it’s just the local weather. Anyone who wants to know the forecast for the whole week or what the skies are doing in another city is out of luck.

Personally, I couldn’t be happier with Weather Neue. I rarely need to know what the weather for the whole week is doing and there are several ways to figure out if it’s raining in other areas of the world. Knowing what it’s doing right now or will this evening – or within the next few days – is much more important to me, so being able to find all of that out within seconds is most certainly appreciated.