It doesn’t seem that long ago, but back in 2008 we shipped version 1.0 of Pocket Weather. It was a different time for Shifty Jelly, just two guys working from their respective couches at night on a fun app. Fast forward to 2015 and the anticipation has been building. The iPhone 6 Plus is out with its giant new screen. Apple Watch is out, a brand new way to get data on the go. The iPad now supports split-screen so you can work better than ever before. You, our beloved customers have been asking us for a while now if we intend to support all these new shiny devices you’ve been buying. Well we have a very clear answer for you today: HECK YEAH! Introducing Pocket Weather 5.
Free Update
The first and most important point: this is a free update to all existing customers. We know you’ve been patiently waiting for it and we don’t intend to add insult to injury by asking you to pay again.
Completely Rebuilt
This app has been completely rebuilt from the ground up using the latest technologies from Apple. That’s not the quickest way to do things, but we believe it makes for the best app experience. If you want to build an app that stands the test of time you need to move with the times. That’s why Pocket Weather Australia 5 is iOS 9 only, and written almost entirely in Apple’s new language, Swift.
Simpler Than Ever
We’ve refined every part of the interface to try and surface all the information you need in ways that the previous version just can’t match. Our core focus was showing you today’s details and the week ahead when you open the app, without you having to perform a single tap.
Of course all the detail you’ve come to expect from Pocket Weather is still there. Swipe up or down to see various bits of information and tap into any card you want to see more detail on. We’ve worked hard on our visualisations as well, meaning getting a glimpse of what the weather is going to be like for that all important weekend is easier to see than ever.
We’ve even sweated the small details. In the previous version you had to pull up your location list to see other weather locations, now they are all just a swipe away.
Watch This Space
The second we put Apple watches on our wrists, we realised we wanted weather on there. You want to wake up in the morning and decide what to wear. Glance at it during the day before heading out to lunch and take a quick peek as you’re having dinner to figure out how cold it’s going to be overnight. Thanks to Watch OS 2 you can now do all that. We have a complication which shows you todays temperature up until 5pm, when it will switch to telling you the overnight low and tomorrow’s high. One tap of the complication takes you into the Pocket Weather app on your watch. Here you can see today’s details as well as glance at a graph that shows you what it’s going to be like for the rest of the week. We’ve found that having all this on your wrist at a moment’s notice is incredibly handy.
iPad Split Screen
With iOS 9 and Split Screen support you’ve come to expect that you can do more things with your iPad. Now that Pocket Weather works in with that, you can open the weather for a holiday you’re going to on one side, and open your mail client on the other. Relax flustered family, it’s going to be sunny and warm where we are going.
We’re Not Done Yet
In the past we’ve tended to favour huge, big-bang releases for Pocket Weather. While it’s exciting to get new things all at once, we’ve heard your feedback that it can sometimes be frustrating to wait many months to get even the smallest of changes. So from now on we’re going to be putting out quicker and smaller releases so we can make changes based on your feedback quicker than ever before. Version 5.1 is already in development and we look forward to hearing from you on ways we can make the app even better.
So whether you’re an existing customer, or someone who’s curious about what all the hype is about, now is the time to go grab the app.
