Don't Let The Weather Surprise You With Alertic

Alertic - Smart Weather App ($0.99) by TAXIII is a minimalistic weather app that prioritizes notifying you about what’s going on outside. Using the widely renowned Forecast.io weather service, the app is able to accurately predict and notify you about the weather. Now that many popular weather apps like Dark Sky and Weather Line utilize the service, what makes Alertic worth mentioning?

Living up to its name, Alertic provides you alerts about a wide range of very specific weather conditions, which include rain, snow, sleet, wind speed, sunrise, sunset, lowest and highest temperature of the day, temperature rises and drops, slippery conditions, and low ozone (possibly leading to more ultraviolet radiation). Of course, your phone will typically ping one hour before these conditions begin to take place

On the main screen, there is a simple list of the locations you have added. You can swipe left on them to delete, or right to toggle notifications on or off for that specific location. Along with your current location, which is automatically displayed, you can add as many as you wish by pulling down on the list.

Each list item displays one location, showing its current time, temperature, and number of alerts ahead. By tapping one, you will be brought to an expanded view, where you can swipe between upcoming alerts, view the current temperature, condition, and wind speed, or even scrub along a graph that will cause these data to change in order to reflect the time of day highlighted. This reminds me of a few other weather apps, like Shade.

This is all there is to Alertic’s interface within the app, and while it is visually appealing and a pleasure to use, there isn’t much going on for a reason. Again, given it’s name, Alertic is meant for providing alerts, and I can confidently say that it does a good job doing this. Just today, I received a few accurate notifications about what was happening outside around me, and they all came with the good timing Forecast.io is known for. Of course, it may seem like a lot to have seven different types of notifications enabled, but they are not intrusive to the point of annoyance. Even if you do feel that the notifications are too much, you can disable them individually by swiping up on the list to view the app’s settings.

Despite that it is probably not ideal to replace a great weather app on your phone with Alertic, the app can act as a great companion. It is lacking feature-wise, as it provides little information, but it is obvious that the sole purpose of the app is to alert you, while acting as a simple and accurate weather source at the same time.

To stay on top of the weather conditions around you, check out Alertic – Smart Weather App for your iPhone. You can find it in the App Store for $0.99.