Gadgetory

virtually any smartphone you buy today can tell you the basic whether out of the box but if you're willing to dig into the App Store's you'll find countless weather apps that promise to be more accurate give you more information and be nicer to look at than your smartphone's default weather apps are some of the most useful apps on my phone they determine what I'll wear and where I'll go in any given day the apps that come with your smart phone can tell you the current weather conditions and perhaps a short forecast but if you want more information such as longer forecasts radar maps or severe weather alerts you're going to have to look elsewhere for the iPhone the best-paid weather app is hands-down dark sky it's 399 which might sound like a lot the dark sky has an uncanny ability to pinpoint your location down to a street address and then tell you exactly how many minutes you have before it will rain the first time you get a push notification to your phone letting you know that will rain in 15 minutes and last for 11 minutes and that's exactly what happens you quickly forget about a few bucks you spent on dark sky dark sky is also a full-featured weather app with 24-hour and full week forecasts and animated maps for precipitation and temperature importantly dark sky has an easy-to-use design with bouncy but informative animations sprinkled throughout it also works on both the iPhone and the iPad it's almost silly to say this about a weather app the dark sky is just fun to use if you're looking for a great free weather app you can't do any better than Yahoo web it's one of the prettiest weather apps ever very clearly inspiring Apple's own weather app introduced with iOS 7 but it doesn't just offer good looks Yahoo weather is as feature complete as they come and it doesn't have any obnoxious ads interrupting your forecast Yahoo weather presents the current conditions in a beautiful font overlaid on images culled from Flickr and it provides more information in a vertically scrolling column there are hourly forecasts 5 or 10 day forecasts and detailed weather information for the current conditions it works on both the iPhone and the iPad and it even has animated radar maps but it does lack alerts for severe weather conditions over on Android the best-paid weather app you can get is AccuWeather platinum for $2.99 AccuWeather platinum offers pretty much everything you can ask for in a weather app detailed current conditions accurate hourly predictions forecasts that stretch out for up to three weeks animated radar maps and TV style video forecasts it also has minute-by-minute forecasts and exact locations right down to your street level a cue others design is clean and fits right in with androids native design language and it includes informative and attractive home screen widgets there are no ads in the Platinum version and you can opt to have your current weather permanently displayed in your phone's notification tray as well as get push notifications for severe weather conditions you can get the free version of AccuWeather which offers the same features in design but it comes with obnoxious banner ads that in the experience for me as with iOS the best free option on Android is Yahoo whether virtually everything that makes Yahoo weather great on the iPhone is found in the Android version including it's clean but information dense design the only thing the Android app is missing compared to iOS is animated radar maps and it doesn't have the minute-by-minute forecast offered by AccuWeather there are countless other options out there everything ranging from the ultra simple weather line to the graphics have a clear day to the ultra complex radar scope and even old standbys like weather bug and The Weather Channel's own app when you cut through the noise what you really want is a weather app that's accurate powerful and pleasant to use every day you'll pay a few dollars to get that experience in dark sky or AccuWeather platinum but when you're able to duck inside just before the torrential downpour it'll be worth every penny you