Design

Weather apps are a dime a dozen, there are probably more of them than any other type available in the app store. Weather Timeline distinguishes itself with its unusual approach to presenting the forecast: a linear version that places a heavy emphasis on the time of day for the provided weather condition. Since most of us head for the “hourly forecast” on sites like weather.com anyway, Weather Timeline skips the fluff and delivers this information up front. Tapping different “blocks” on the interface reveal relevant sets of information. Touching the “Right Now” block, for instance, expands to display more minute details about the current conditions, like humidity and visibility. Tapping a future day of the week opens that day’s hourly forecast.

The timeline itself is adorned with playful animations to represent the varying weather conditions, that is if you leave the default icon set selected. Weather Timeline allows you to theme the application to your liking, even providing a “Custom” theme option that allows the user to personalize the entire interface, from the background color down to color choices for each weather condition.

Weather Timeline manages to go beyond the basic forecast without stretching itself too thin. One of my favorite extra features is the moon phase viewer, which is accessible from the main timeline through the three dot menu in the upper-righthand corner. Moon Viewer displays a beautiful depiction of our moon as it will appear in the sky in the evening, as well as a calendar showing the phase of the moon for every day in the upcoming month. Another welcome addition is Live Radar, with precipitation, temperature, and cloud layers, animated over a period of 12 hours. While the overarching design guidelines seem to loosen a bit for this feature, it still provides a pleasant experience, and is definitely worth it for those who favor a more visual portrayal of the forecast. All in all, Weather Timeline provides a fantastic view of the day ahead. The weather is meant to be beautiful. Weather Timeline makes that possible.