With Its 4.0 Update, Dark Sky Turns Into A Full-Featured iOS 7-Optimized Weather App
January 27, 2014
The acclaimed hyperlocal weather app Dark Sky has just been updated to version 4.0 with a new iOS 7-inspired design and new interesting features.
Dark Sky 4.0 introduces a new interface that matches the look and feel of iOS 7 with its simplicity, translucency, and flatness. But that's just the tip of the iceberg.
More significantly, the update introduces a number of new features. These features, which are backed by Forecast, make Dark Sky a full-fledged weather app, while remaining true, the Dark Sky team maintains, to the app's "original focus on what’s happening right now, where you’re standing."
Of course, on it launch screen, Dark Sky stills shows the current temperature and conditions along with a graph of precipitation over the next 60 minutes, which is accurate down to the minute. But in addition to those, it now shows the "feels like" temperature, an indicator for whether it's getting hotter or colder, and the distance to the nearest storm. It now also shows wind, humidity, pressure, and visibility data when the current conditions circle is tapped.
Dark Sky 4.0 also features extended 24-hour and 7-day forecasts. The Dark Sky team notes:
In studying how people use weather apps (ours and others), it’s become clear that the next 24 hours is hugely important. So much so that we’ve devoted an entire screen to a full breakdown of what’s going to happen in the next day. You’ll get a quick text summary, plus a timeline of cloud cover, precipitation, and temperature. You can see the high and low temperatures, and when the sun will rise and set.Another screen is then devoted to a day-by-day breakdown of the next week, in which tapping or swiping a day reveals additional forecasts for that day. And then there are the all-new global weather maps, which let you explore weather pattens on a 3-D globe that includes precipitation and temperature layers. Check them out in action in this video: If you can't see the video embedded above, please click here. Compatible with iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad running iOS 7.0 or later, Dark Sky 4.0 is available now in the App Store as a free update or as a new $3.99 download. Note that Dark Sky currently supports the U.S, the U.K., Ireland, and surrounding areas. Dark Sky was launched on iOS in April 2012. For more information on the app, check out our original "hidden gem" review here on AppAdvice. Dark Sky is listed as a "notable app" in both our Best iPhone Weather Apps AppGuide and our Best iPad Weather Apps AppGuide. [gallery link="file" order="DESC"]