By January 31, 2009

Review SPB Weather 2.0

image Don’t forget your heavy coat, it’s going to be a cold one.

How did I know that? Because I have SPB Weather. A great weather utility from the people who brought us Mobile Shell and Time, Weather integrates fully into your Today screen or (appropriately enough) Mobile Shell, Pocket Plus, and Diary. Read on for the full review.

While SPB Weather is quite robust, I have two little complaints about it. I realize that many WM phones are now touch screen only, but since I have buttons, I would very much like to use them. When I’m in the settings, why can’t I press my “OK” button to exit? Why must I tap the x on the screen? I could even understand if it was a big, finger friendly x…but it’s not. My other complaint involves the views from the standard Today screen, so let’s look at those.

The default view is a five day forecast, although sometimes I see a 6th day with no information available and a big NA showing. Five days is great to plan ahead, but it isn’t necessary, and takes up quite a bit of screen real estate. If I’m not traveling out of town, three days is enough, and with only 3 days, the icons and text could be larger and more readable to tired old eyes like mine. Unfortunately, this is not an option. Nor is simply making the weather icons/fonts larger an option.

weather09 weather04

What I do like about SPB Weather is the detail available. You can view the current weather for multiple cities on your Today screen, and you can choose any city you want. Choose your city from a database of city names, by country, by airport, or gps location. No matter where you are, or where you’re going – your location is covered.

weather07

I keep three cities updated: home, Albany NY (so I can pity or make fun of the relatives), and Paris. I can view all of them on my Today screen, set them up in tabs so that I can switch between them, or choose only one to view. I can easily switch between them once I enter the Weather application. SPB is great at making its programs finger friendly, and Weather is no exception. You can “swipe” up or down to view the details of a single city, or left/right to switch between cities.

With any given location, the details are astounding. Tap on any day, and you immediately see the temperature, humidity, pressure, and wind speed. This is further broken down by day, night, morning, and evening.

View Weather details

View Full Album

One of the really neat features of Weather is the satellite view. Imagine the satellite imagery from the 6 o’clock news right in the palm of your hand. You can zoom in or out, and you can animate the global satellite view. You can even chose the layer for your view: temperature, precipitation, sky, or satellite. I can skip the local weatherman when I can look at my Treo and watch the rain move in.

weather02 weathersat

For finger friendly, detailed weather SPB Weather is a great option, although it’s steep at $19.95, and the 4MB footprint is also something to consider, although it can be run from an expansion card if your device supports one.

Written by Alli Flowers Just Another Geek SIte

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Posted in: Phones

About the Author:

Seasoned tech blogger. Host of the Tech Addicts podcast.
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