A good weather app can be incredibly useful, even for people who, like me, only use one for a few seconds each day.
My typical morning consists of unlocking my phone and tapping on the little weather icon at the top of my launcher. I use the Pixel 2 XL, so there’s always weather information in the ‘At a glance’ widget at the top of the screen.
However, I’m willing to forsake some convenience for a more accurate, better-designed weather app: Today Weather.
Today is a free, wonderful white-on-black minimalist weather app. It looks amazing. The thin type-face pops deliciously from the dark background. The way the icons dance gleefully, with rain falling and clouds shifting and sun beaming is endearing.
Scrolling through Today is a joy
When you first open the app, you find yourself looking at a semi-random picture related to the weather. Immediately below it in big clean numbers is the temperature.
As you read down the page, you get all the pertinent information: location, the forecast for the day, followed by an hourly breakdown of the next seven hours.
Scrolling down the page reveals more detail. You get the ‘RealFeel’ metric, which indicates what the temperature feels like. The app also provides a breakdown of major indexes, like humidity, UV, visibility, dew point and air pressure.
Next up, Today provides a seven-day forecast in a tidy layout. The app uses the black space expertly to space each day evenly, making clear distinctions without a distracting grid.
Additionally, the app uses a clever line system to indicate temperature. It maps out the highs and lows of each day, with a coloured line extending between each low and high. At the low end, the line is yellow. It transitions to a bloody orange at the high end. This serves two purposes at once: it gives users a visual scale of the temperature difference between the high and low, as well as between each day of the week.
Users can also click through on this to see a 15 forecast.
The bottom of the app caps everything off with some final details about the day. You get an hourly breakdown of precipitation for the day.
Below that is an air quality index, the sunrise and sunset times, the moon cycles and wind speed. The wind has a subtle animation with trees swaying gently in the breeze.
The very bottom of the app caps things off with a radar view. Users can click through to see a fullscreen view of the radar. However, this is reserved for paid users. The app also lists where it gets the weather data from. Tapping that source gives you the option to select other data sources.
Today Weather’s free version is ad-supported. Furthermore, there are a few restricted features that are only available for paid subscribers.
There are three subscription tiers for those looking to buy: $1.19 for 6 months, $1.79 for one year, or $5.49 for a one-time purchase.
Going premium removes ads, unlocks three extra weather icon sets and also unlocks the radar.
For such a beautiful looking weather app, it’s definitely worth the price. However, the free version is more than enough weather for most.
