This surprised me seeing as one of the example images shows Europe, including the south coast of Britain.
I don't think I am ready to pay an annual subscription for it. Feels like a big ask for the weather when there are so many other free sources to get a forecast. But I appreciate that the app was made with real intention and wish I you success with it.
Apparently it's by https://neave.com/ who looks like an indy developer out of london (according to this: https://neave.com/legal/privacy/)
Also check https://earth.nullschool.net/ by https://github.com/cambecc
Also: subscription fatigue is real. Of course I understand that fetching weather data isn’t free etc. (even though I’m intrigued by their homegrown forecast model) but I’ve already got 10+ subscriptions on iOS and I’m not sure if I’ve got the stomach for another. Apple’s weather app is finally good though since the Dark Sky acquisition.
This. I just went and cancelled a bunch of vampire subscriptions that had accrued in my life (both in and out of the Apple ecosystem) and ended up saving somewhere in the range of $60 a month.
I get that people have bills to pay and building and maintaining software costs money, but when everyone wants money from me for every little thing, eventually I have to decide who gets what cut from an increasingly limited sized pie.
Apps like this that, while beautiful, replicate functionality that is "good enough" that I can get for free are the first thing to be cut.
It’s that depth of thought and expertise that feels missing from most of the vibe-coded launches we’ve seen recently. I actually wouldn’t mind if Acme had vibe coded parts, but I bet they didn’t.
Also I don't get what happened but I think it was AccuWeather or weather underground in the early 2000s where it was to the minute accurate and it seems like it's gotten worse since everywhere.
The rainbow and sunset alerts are really cool ideas. I'm now realising that a simple tie-in to astronomical phenomena could prompt a useful notificationa around it e.g. being worth going stargazing that night. I ski–learning that the near-term forecasts just changed would help me change my schedule the day before versus trying and failing the morning of.
This looks great and I'd definitely consider switching my family Weather Line plan over to an Acme Weather family plan if it becomes possible.
One thing I learned is some post processing done by these services are better in some areas than others.
https://www.ecommercefuel.com/woot/
https://techcrunch.com/2014/06/27/woot-reborn-as-meh/
https://www.dmagazine.com/publications/d-magazine/2014/july/...
https://meh.com/forum/topics/year-one-meh-stats--mediocre-st...
Also, it seems a common misunderstanding about some weather apps: yes, most of them just package free data and steal your privacy, but some are really much more than a “weather app”. Some are attempts at building next-generation weather forecast models, which if successful are of course worth billions.
I’ve spent a lot of time building innovative weather apps, most of my career actually. And it’s always shocking to me when people say I’m wasting time or wasting my life or look at me like, “really? You’re dedicating your life to weather apps?!”
No dawg, I’m trying to improve short term forecasts to save life and property from severe events at scale!
I’m not sure what the Acme end goal is, but surely this isn’t just a “weather app”.
Tell me you work in Silicon Valley without telling me you work in silicon Valley.
Sorry but I couldn't resist. There is something in US startup mentality where you can't just "create an app and make a living", you have to be on a grand mission to save the world. That may be normal out there, but for the rest of the world it just seems... Get back to earth man :-)
I will never forgive them for selling out to Apple.
Dark sky was the greatest weather app I've ever used, it had features such as considering the pressure of the atmosphere when predicting rain using crowd sourced phones, and it was the only app I've ever used that was as accurate as it was during a time when my job relied on quickly leaving the office and running across town multiple times a day.
it was sad watching the API get killed off but even worse was that a lot of the features that dark sky had never really made it into Apple weather, and the rain predictions at Apple Weather had were never as accurate as dark sky. There were several times where it was actively raining and Apple weather never even knew. Dark sky always knew.
Nope nope nope fool me once shame on you fool me twice shame on me, I'm not touching this with 39 1/2 foot pole.
Why exactly should you willingly choose to have worse weather predictions between here and there?
A weather app isn't something with lock-in or dependencies where using a maybe-not-permanent-solution is going to hamstring you if it disappears.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dew_point
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humidity#Relative_humidity
In the US, the 100th meridian is a popular demarcation for the half of the country that experiences high humidity versus the other half that experiences low humidity. It is why 100F in Phoenix, Arizona is much more tolerable than 100F in Atlanta, Georgia.
In cold weather (wind chill), wind strips away the thin warm layer of air next to your skin, so you lose heat faster. Hence, "feels colder".
In hot weather (heat index), humidity slows sweat evaporation, so your body can't cool itself as effectively. Hence, "feels hotter".
So it's a lot more useful for decision-making (like what to wear, weather it is safe to run/hike, how much water you need, etc.) than the plain temperature.
> So let’s try this again…
At this point, I think that this is just going to get bought out by OpenAI.
Won't be totally surprised to see that outcome.
The price is reasonable I guess, but also, you can just get weather for free? IDK...
Weather requires ongoing costs. It’s always going to need to be maintained because meteorological models are evolving. Anything beyond a viewport will need to track and metabolize those changes.
I strongly doubt that this company runs their own weather stations or meteorological models. Their only recurring cost is API access to the companies that provide weather data, a negligible amount of IT infrastructure, and their employees. Considering that there are many free weather APIs, and that a polished frontend can be built by a single person, what exactly are the overheads?
To be fair, I'm not criticizing the subscription model. I think it makes sense for software that needs to be continually maintained. But a weather app shouldn't have large maintenance costs that couldn't be covered by a one-time payment. A big reason why companies love the Apple ecosystem is because subscriptions have been normalized, and users are used to paying them regardless if the model actually makes sense for the type of software.
No. But I'd suspect a tabula rasa approach to weather–particularly given it hasn't been rolled out globally in one go–incorporates satellite data, local measurements, et cetera.
Again, that may not take constant subscriprtion. But it does take constant expert monitoring and awareness.
> Considering that there are many free weather APIs
If you're a glorified viewport into these APIs' data, you may be able to stick with their most-static data and fire and forget. In reality, what those outputs mean change as the models and techniques evolve. There are new APIs with new data constantly coming out, and they're often adding connectors.
> a weather app shouldn't have large maintenance costs that couldn't be covered by a one-time payment
The only way I see this working is if the user is explicitly aware the app can break at any time if one of the APIs change anything, which they often do, and that this may not cause any obvious failures, just a decay in the app's accuracy or usefulness.
Can we update the title?
The features this ad promotes all seem like solutions to nonexistent problems. "Alternate possible futures" don't give me any more confidence in the forecast—it just shows that it's not reliable, which everyone should know already. "Community reports" just add another layer of uncertainty. How can I trust that someone's report is valid or up-to-date, or that it applies to my area? Maps are nice and visually interesting, but this is not exactly novel. Notifications? No thanks. A weather app "should be fun"? Huge no thanks. Privacy and trust? Why do you collect any data?? Unbelievable.
It takes about 24 cores with a GPU to do CONUS, Canada, Alaska, Pacific and Caribbean data. This should be 2x for redundancy. Even being cheap with main processing in my basement (gen power, backup internet) the cloud costs to serve it are $200 month plus data transfer. The standby grib machine spins up should it not see the cheap primary or the NOAAPort receiver is offline.
There is no money to be made without whoring out your user’s privacy. People just won’t pay for a privacy focused weather app. I keep this going as a hobby.
But then again, we don't know whether this company is maintaining this infra themselves, or if they're paying for API access. Besides, if anything, running their own servers is often the more cost-effective option, so the details you mention might not matter in practice.
My incredulity has more to do with the profitability of this type of software, considering that the free options are good enough for the average person, and that the features promoted in the article are hardly innovative.
> There is no money to be made without whoring out your user’s privacy.
Well, I do object to that. It's certainly possible to sustain a profitable business without selling out your users' data. It may not be as profitable as the advertising model, which is often too enticing for companies to ignore. This company explicitly says that their income comes directly from customers, so apparently I'm underestimating the amount of people who find these features valuable enough to pay for them.
There are like, billions of internet-connected barometers in the world that are not used in weather models. I don’t know if Acme has any of that in mind, but there is plenty of good reason for a weather app to collect data from phones. I know @counters may disagree with me, but I believe there are opportunities to improve short term forecast accuracy using data collected from phones.
Also, pretty much every day, all the apps and all the sites will tell me the incorrect current conditions at my location, much less the forecast. It’s 2026 damnit. Why doesn’t my phone know what the weather is outside right now?
I haven’t got the app yet, but I plan on it (gotta upgrade iOS first I think). Acme seems to have a lot of ideas I agree with, so, definitely following this.
One more thing. Weather apps have not been “solved”. Not even close. They all suck, there’s billions in untapped opportunity, and a stale existing market of bad solutions. People die all the time from severe weather. There is so much more work to be done in forecast accuracy and communication.
Alright, fair point. That could be a reasonable use case.
But judging by their advertised "Community reports" feature, Acme doesn't seem to be doing this. And even if they did, this feature should be opt-in, and their privacy policy should only apply for those users.
> Also, pretty much every day, all the apps and all the sites will tell me the incorrect current conditions at my location, much less the forecast. It’s 2026 damnit. Why doesn’t my phone know what the weather is outside right now?
Have you tried looking out the window? What do you need hyper-local and minute-accurate forecasts for? If you need to know accurate current conditions get a thermometer and barometer. If you want it on your smartphone, then the app could show you live readings from your device, without sending the data anywhere.
Weather forecasts have always been an inexact science, and likely always will be. Our models have gotten better over time, and at this point I think that they're good enough. I only need to know the general temperature and likelihood of certain weather events a few days in advance, at most. If there's a chance of rain, I carry an umbrella just in case. If it's going to be cold, I pack a jacket.
Highly accurate weather prediction doesn't solve any practical problem for the average person. Hyping it up like it does only serves as marketing for companies that want to build a profitable business around it.
Smartphones are personal computers. They spend most of their time in pockets and controlled indoor environments. This ambient data is of no use to anyone, which is why there's still a market for home weather stations, whose sensors are typically placed outside.
Plenty of work has been done on this front, and it can be demonstrated that you can assimilate the smartphone pressures into weather models and get some good results. It is hard, of course, and I’m not sure personally how much better the forecasts get. But it’s absolutely possible.
"Obsessing" over your icons and user interface won't make your app useful to people you explicitly do not provide your app to.
- Uncertainty bands in the forecast (the bands are a better UX than more lines imo)
- User-supplied reports
- Many many many different maps (snow / cloud / wind / sunshine / air quality / etc)
- Alerts (not notifications, but real alerts to watch out for something)
Local weather services shouldn't be overlooked (and they're "free"... save for taxes!).
Ventusky has the best app experience in Android with many different layers like wind, precipitation, air quality and many more. Can only recommend this as well.
My comment was a critique of a launching approach that I find annoying, because I would never dare to launch an app ignoring most of the world.
https://www.meteoswiss.admin.ch/services-and-publications/se...
If it's about cute UI and key notifications, try Hello Weather. For microcell notifications on anything, Tomorrow weather. For much better maps, WeatherMap.
For comparing multiple models, try Windy.app. For coastal barrier island use, I have 8 graphed at once, most of them EU models.
Very little reason for any weather app beyond Carrot, though Apple Weather is surprising evolved from the app of 20 years ago, no longer the 4th app to replace after messaging, maps, and browser).
Carrot is the only weather app with a vicious weather control AI singing an entire Broadway concept album about your destruction at you though.
Yet another China-only app with China-only weather, I guess, like countless others…
"Obsessing" over your icons and user interface won't make your app useful to people you explicitly do not provide your app to.
Build your own EU weather app if you care so much. No one is obligated to support their software in the part of the world you happen to live.
I guess they wanted to focus on the US market at first because they know there is money to be made there.
The US might suck socially, but the other side of that coin is that it gets all the cool stuff.
Maybe the market is too small, maybe it will come with the next version, maybe there are EU barriers that prevent implementation?
This constant complaining about something that didn't exist 1 second ago is tiresome.
https://apps.apple.com/de/app/dwd-warnwetter/id986420993?l=e...
Yes. We pay for it with taxes! And again with our money in the App Store. But the app success is build upon the lawsuit from WetterOnline which is a private company.
https://www.bundesgerichtshof.de/SharedDocs/Pressemitteilung...
The lawsuit backfired and made the state funded app well known. WetterOnline attacked the DWD because the state funded app is superior :)
I think in Italy they have some similar app. Would be nice if the EU helps us to unify the app. And add offline capabilities, bad or no internet happens. The weather radar is offline of less use but the forecast still helps.
They release videos for dangerous weather on YouTube. We’ll know for regular people, in regular cloths, speaking like regular Germans. Everyone loves it :)
I like it when important services are provided by the state and private companies. Save foundation! In worst case the state is always better. In best case they compete and public benefits. In this case the private company just sucks. But they made a good job in advertising for DWD ^^
PS: If someone would implement a nice weather for Linux (best Gtk) based upon DWD public data? DO IT!
Most free one are disappearing and frustratingly in most countries, the weather agency you pay with your tax will not provide it for you.
I want something that integrates into my life very minimally and just gives me the information I need when I need it. Most weather apps fail at this.
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/brzzy-weather-radar-alerts/id6...