{"id":30914,"date":"2024-04-27T06:46:14","date_gmt":"2024-04-27T13:46:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.podfeet.com\/blog\/?p=30914"},"modified":"2024-04-28T11:46:19","modified_gmt":"2024-04-28T18:46:19","slug":"ccatp-792","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.podfeet.com\/blog\/2024\/04\/ccatp-792\/","title":{"rendered":"CCATP #792 \u2013 Bart Busschots on Rethinking Weather Apps for Privacy and Functionality"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In this episode of Chit Chat Across the Pond Lite, Bart Busschots joins us to talk about weather apps. He&#8217;s a serious weather nerd by necessity, living in Ireland and being an avid bike rider. As he walks through the apps he&#8217;ll explain which ones fall down on privacy, and which ones have good apps for everything from the watch to iOS to the Mac. He&#8217;ll even go through how he uses different widgets to help him decide how much rain gear to wear.<\/p>\n<p>One caveat to our conversation. At the end of our conversation, I sprang the question of price on Bart and he answered to the best of his memory, and his memory was a bit rosier than reality. You&#8217;ll hear him say that none are more than 20 euros per year, but I looked up Weather Up, and in the US it&#8217;s $40 per year. Might still be worth it to you. This is my bad because I didn&#8217;t give him a heads-up that I&#8217;d be asking about price.<\/p>\n<p>Links and commentary are available below the fold.<\/p>\n<audio class=\"wp-audio-shortcode\" id=\"audio-30914-1\" preload=\"none\" style=\"width: 100%;\" controls=\"controls\"><source type=\"audio\/mpeg\" src=\"https:\/\/media.blubrry.com\/nosillacast\/traffic.libsyn.com\/nosillacast\/CCATP_2024_04_26.mp3?_=1\" \/><a href=\"https:\/\/media.blubrry.com\/nosillacast\/traffic.libsyn.com\/nosillacast\/CCATP_2024_04_26.mp3\">https:\/\/media.blubrry.com\/nosillacast\/traffic.libsyn.com\/nosillacast\/CCATP_2024_04_26.mp3<\/a><\/audio>\n<p><a title=\"mp3 download\" href=\"https:\/\/media.blubrry.com\/nosillacast\/traffic.libsyn.com\/nosillacast\/CCATP_2024_04_26.mp3\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">mp3 download<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Read an unedited, auto-generated transcript with chapter marks:   <a href=\"https:\/\/podfeet.com\/transcripts\/CCATP_2024_04_26.html\">CCATP_2024_04_26<\/a><\/p>\n<h3>Triggers:<\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.macstories.net\/reviews\/looks-like-rain-visualizing-the-weather-on-a-color-coded-timeline\/\">Looks Like Rain: Visualizing the Weather on a Color-Coded Timeline &#8211; MacStories<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/overcast.fm\/+B7NCshawc\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Talk Show episode 396 with Weather Up! developer David Barnard<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3>Problems to be solved:<\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li>Free weather apps (other than built-in Weather app) are a privacy train wreck \u2014 I wanted rid of them all!\n<ul>\n<li>Developers need to pay for access to weather data, so all weather apps need monetisation of some form \u2014 if you\u2019re not paying explicitly you\u2019re paying implicitly!<\/li>\n<li>Best-case monetisation by regular tracking ads<\/li>\n<li>By their nature weather apps need location access, so incentives to monetise from tracking companies is very high<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>Over many years, I collected an amazing mess of more weather apps that you can shake a stick at, many free, all with location access!<\/li>\n<li>Many single information-sparse widgets wasting screen space on:\n<ul>\n<li>iOS lock screen<\/li>\n<li>iOS home screens<\/li>\n<li>iOS widgets screen<\/li>\n<li>WatchOS Watch face <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>Not making use of new interactive widgets on iOS<\/li>\n<li>Not happy with any weather app on watchOS<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3>Remaining apps:<\/h3>\n<h4><a href=\"https:\/\/apps.apple.com\/ie\/app\/carrot-weather-alerts-radar\/id96139057\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Carrot Weather<\/a> (iPhone &amp; iPad) 4<\/h4>\n<ul>\n<li>Extremely configurable, including a preset that behaves like the long lamented DarkSky app Apple bought and killed\n<ul>\n<li>Was able to get everything I loved in DarkSky, but tweaked to be even more like I want it with customisable header and footer regions above and below the list<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<figure style=\"float: center; margin: 10px\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.podfeet.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/IMG_4055.png\" alt=\"Temperature at the top, then radar, then the temperature in timeline\"  title=\"IMG_4055.PNG\" width=\"277 \" height=\"600\"><figcaption style=\"text-align:center\">Carrot Weather Configured Like Dark Sky<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<ul>\n<li>Powerful custom notifications like umbrella warnings in the morning<\/li>\n<li>Nice selection of traditional widgets \u2014 many nice and information-dense, but not interactive<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h4><a href=\"https:\/\/apps.apple.com\/ie\/app\/raintoday\/id326461840\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">RainToday<\/a> (iPhone &amp; iPad)<\/h4>\n<ul>\n<li>Best radar data for Ireland of any app I ever tried<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<figure style=\"float: center; margin: 10px\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.podfeet.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/IMG_4056.png\" alt=\"Radar map with slider for time showing the greater Dublin area\"  title=\"IMG_4056.PNG\" width=\"277 \" height=\"600\"><figcaption style=\"text-align:center\">RainToday<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<h4><a href=\"https:\/\/apps.apple.com\/ie\/app\/ventusky-weather-maps-radar\/id1280984498\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Ventusky<\/a> (iPhone &amp; iPad)<\/h4>\n<ul>\n<li>Best wind visualisation of any app I\u2019ve ever tried<\/li>\n<li>Better radar widget than Rain Today (more useful zoom level and less cluttered)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<figure style=\"float: center; margin: 10px\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.podfeet.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/IMG_0393.png\" alt=\"Wind map of greater Dublin area showing direction and a number for speed. selector along the bottom for day\"  title=\"IMG_0393.PNG\" width=\"599 \" height=\"449\"><figcaption style=\"text-align:center\">Ventusky on iPad<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<h4><a href=\"https:\/\/apps.apple.com\/ie\/app\/looks-like-rain\/id6443960587\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Looks Like Rain<\/a> (iPhone)<\/h4>\n<ul>\n<li>Does one thing, but does it really well!<\/li>\n<li>A truly original interface<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<figure style=\"float: center; margin: 10px\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.podfeet.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/IMG_4057.png\" alt=\"on iPhone, shows temp by hour with icons for clouds or sun. Below that are colored strips for each day - color by clear vs how cloudy (grey) vs blue for rain\"  title=\"IMG_4057.PNG\" width=\"277 \" height=\"600\"><figcaption style=\"text-align:center\">Looks Like Rain<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p> &#8211; Nice selection of traditional widgets<\/p>\n<h4><a href=\"https:\/\/apps.apple.com\/ie\/app\/weather-up-live-widgets\/id1196015787\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Weather Up<\/a> (iPhone, AppleWatch &amp; Mac)<\/h4>\n<ul>\n<li>A widget-first app<\/li>\n<li>The best interactive widgets I\u2019ve seen from any app<\/li>\n<li>The best WatchOS app I\u2019ve found<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<figure style=\"float: center; margin: 10px\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.podfeet.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/IMG_4053.jpg\" alt=\"Graph for temp with icons for cloud, etc. Temp range by day\"  title=\"IMG_4053.jpg\" width=\"400 \" height=\"400\"><figcaption style=\"text-align:center\">Weather Up on Apple Watch<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>&#8211; The only one of all my apps that works well on M-series Macs<br \/>\n &#8211; Within the app itself it is a map-first interface and it\u2019s at its best on larger screens IMO<\/p>\n<figure style=\"float: center; margin: 10px\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.podfeet.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/Screenshot-2024-04-26-at-16.37.24.png\" alt=\"Window with a map with the current rainfall radar overlaid with weather details in a slide-up drawer on the bottom left. The slide-up drawer shows the current conditions, then a row cells with conditions for the next few hours, then detailed metrics including humidity and percentage cloud cover\" width=\"600\" height=\"918\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-30924\" \/><figcaption style=\"text-align:center\">Weather Up on the Mac<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<h4><a href=\"https:\/\/apps.apple.com\/ie\/app\/weatherpro-for-ipad\/id373515261\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Weather Pro HD<\/a>  (iPad)<\/h4>\n<ul>\n<li>Makes maximal use of the iPad screen real-estate to show graphs of just about every weather metric stacked vertically, showing the next 10 days<\/li>\n<li>Great for seeing long-term wind, rain, temperature, air pressure, and sun trends<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<figure style=\"float: center; margin: 10px\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.podfeet.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/IMG_0392.png\" alt=\"Many rows of info with graphics for many different weather metrics\"  title=\"IMG_0392.PNG\" width=\"599 \" height=\"449\"><figcaption style=\"text-align:center\">Weather Pro on iPad<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<h3>Remaining Widgets:<\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li>iOS Lock Screen: Looks Like Rain\n<ul>\n<li>Two-wide but very cleverly changes its appearance as appropriate \u2014 when there\u2019s no current rain it gives a nice outlook for the day, when there is, it shows the duration and heaviness as a bar chart<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<figure style=\"float: center; margin: 10px\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.podfeet.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/IMG_4050.jpg\" alt=\"3 screenshots of iOS widget at 3 times of day illlustrating that the app shows different things dependig on conditions\"  title=\"IMG_4050.JPG\" width=\"254 \" height=\"600\"><figcaption style=\"text-align:center\">Three Different Screenshots of Looks Like Rain<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<h4>iOS widgets screen<\/h4>\n<ul>\n<li>Looks Like Rain (2 days rain bars)<\/li>\n<li>Weather Up (Interactive widget)\n<ul>\n<li>Ventusky (current radar)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<figure style=\"float: center; margin: 10px\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.podfeet.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/IMG_4054.jpg\" alt=\"Three widgets on iOS\"  title=\"IMG_4054.jpg\" width=\"434 \" height=\"600\"><figcaption style=\"text-align:center\">Looks Like Rain, then Weather Up, Then Ventuesky<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<h4>iOS Home Screen widgets (different in different focuses):<\/h4>\n<ul>\n<li>Personal focus: one 2&#215;2 showing dense info for current quarter of the day<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<figure style=\"float: center; margin: 10px\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.podfeet.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/IMG_4035.jpg\" alt=\"4 times showing temp and clouds.\"  title=\"IMG_4035.jpg\" width=\"277 \" height=\"600\"><figcaption style=\"text-align:center\">Carrot Weather in 2&#215;2 Widget in Home Focus<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p> &#8211; Work focus: one 2&#215;4 showing rain\/cloud bars for today and tomorrow from Looks Like Rain<\/p>\n<figure style=\"float: center; margin: 10px\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.podfeet.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/IMG_4036.jpg\" alt=\"Maynooth weather in strips by day.\"  title=\"IMG_4036.jpg\" width=\"277 \" height=\"600\"><figcaption style=\"text-align:center\">2&#215;4 of Looks Like Rain in Work Focus<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<ul>\n<li>WatchOS: Weather Up! (Down from 3 widgets to just one!)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<figure style=\"float: center; margin: 10px\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.podfeet.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/IMG_4052.jpg\" alt=\"Rising and lowering line graph of temp and clouds.\"  title=\"IMG_4052.jpg\" width=\"400 \" height=\"\"><figcaption style=\"text-align:center\">Weather Up Widget on Apple Watch<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In this episode of Chit Chat Across the Pond Lite, Bart Busschots joins us to talk about weather apps. He&#8217;s a serious weather nerd by necessity, living in Ireland and being an avid bike rider. As he walks through the apps he&#8217;ll explain which ones fall down on privacy, and which ones have good apps [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":11346,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[147,737],"tags":[114,4519,4710,6584],"class_list":["post-30914","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog-posts","category-ccatp-lite","tag-privacy","tag-weather","tag-weather-apps","tag-widgets"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.podfeet.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/ChitChatPond_V8_lite_300px.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.podfeet.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30914","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.podfeet.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.podfeet.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.podfeet.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.podfeet.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30914"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.podfeet.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30914\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30927,"href":"https:\/\/www.podfeet.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30914\/revisions\/30927"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.podfeet.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11346"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.podfeet.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30914"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.podfeet.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30914"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.podfeet.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30914"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}