You'll remember that we've looked at Epocware's Handy Weather before, giving both the original S60 3rd Edition version and that for UIQ 3 well deserved AAS MegaApp awards. And now they've gone and improved it again, adding weather maps and streamlining the interface. Still a MegaApp? You bet, it's still one of the stars in the Symbian OS firmament - here's my review of Handy Weather version 5.01.
Read on in the full article.
Thats impressed me so much Im going to buy it. Also a huge boon that its only around 2k per city for an update, rather crucial being on a poxy 160mb a month limit.
Definatly one of the better S60 apps out there.
True, a mega app and one I've been running since my N80. However, one area this new version has taken a backwards step is that of additional cities. Previous versions let you create custom cities, configurable by Long/Lat details. V5 however only lets you pick from a set of cities, with no user configuration at all. Whilst previously I was able to put my home town in, this is no longer possible and I have to pick one 20 miles away. Not as good, especially when it now shows a different name for my Home as well.
Does it make a difference though? Surely the weather results would be the same as the nearest city/town anyway as it wouldnt have any extra data if you gave it a closer location?
Would be nice if you could rename the town/city though.
For a perfectionist weather geek like me, yes. 😉 Especially as I know there is a weather station used by the BBC in the locality. And, 20 miles is sufficiently far enough away to produce different weather, as well as topographical differences that can create micro climate changes. Not to mention being able to change the name so it shows my Home correctly.
But I do like the maps. Nice seeing pressure maps so I can work out likely wind direction changes.
PS Steve, you took a while to review this. Can't think how long I've been running it for now 😉
I thought it would only use the weather stations it knows of, so if the provider is accuweather, they wouldnt nessercarily know about the one nearer you. i.e. you'd put in the closer location, but it would be the same weather station used by the nearest result in the towns/cities list.
Or doesnt it work that way?
How do you get the screensaver? I've looked at the Help and gone through the menu options repeatedly. I remember it working for me in an earlier version. Otherwise, a great program and worth the money.
For screensaver -
settings - themes - power saver.
'Weather' should be in there.
You're probably right. I never examined it too closely but it did seem to give different weather when inputing long/lat details. Maybe they've changed their data acquisition methods/providers. Either way, I'd like home to be my home, not a town 20 miles away.
One thing I really would like, which may stop me from buying it is that it doesnt have an announce feature.
With worldmate, the weather function has a feature where at a user set time, it will display the current weather forcast. I have it set so that it comes on at 5 in the morning (I leave the voice set to off). So when I wake up, I have the weather forcast displayed on my phone, rather than having to go into a menu.
Sounds trivial, but its a very useful function.
That's the point behind the screensaver - the forecast is ALWAYS on your screen everytime you glance down etc.
8-)
Not mine, I just get a black screen after a while. Im not sure where the option is to keep it alive.
What phone you running this on? On my N95 the screensaver stays visible all the time, albeit in lowly black and white, but certainly visible all the time.Without needing to launch the app to get a forecast and constantly have an up to date forecast on the screen is great.
Edit - just seen your sig and remembered you don't have an N95 😉 Maybe your phone's powersave cuts the screen completely. An alternative is to use BestProfiles to auto-launch it so that it's running when you wake up. But then you'd have to buy that too 😊
6110, cant find any option for it to keep it on. Shame, looks like worldmate is going to win this one.
To get Weather as Screensaver do as follow:
Menu/Themes//Powersaver and choose Weather
Read up a bit and you'll see I already put that 🙄
@bartmanekul <<rather crucial being on a poxy 160mb a month limit.>>
Spare a thought for us poor Orange users stuck on 30mb per month!
i was using the older version a couple of months ago, and while it looked very nice, i found the weather info to be wrong on a daily basis! it was totally useless for the toronto area. since the version has been updated i will give it a try again.
thanks for the review
I hadn't noticed you can't add custom cities anymore - that's nasty. Especially as I could have sworn the previous version was able to use the current GPS position as a City. For the record, I get different forcasts for my custom cities, despite most of them being relatively close (as in within 40 miles) of London.
I noticed when I first started using Handy Weather (years ago) that sometimes the screensaver wouldn't kick in until after a couple of reboots of the phone, and if you've installed the app. onto a memory card, then taking that out and putting it back in helped as well.
so is this worth it for us in Cali USA, where the weather never changes? haha but maybe when i move back to the east coast it will be useful:tongue:
When you say only $20, you should mention it's $20 for the first year, and $13 yearly after that. I don't think it's very nice of them to not be clear that the license is only for one year.
But then, as most people only keep their phone for a year and licenses are generally tied to imea numbers, is this really an issue? (in the uk anyway)
I was diappointed in the new version, after previously excellent service from Epocware.
1. Being outside the USA in Asia, I suddenly found that most of "My" cities no longer had a "Current Condition" - so I have a weather application that can't tell me the local weather.
Epocware claim that their new data provider - Intellicast.com - doesn't provide this service, but clearly they provide it from some cities, and certainly I can see all "My" cities current condition on the Intellicast main web-site, so this looks like Epocware just didn't pay for all the cities and are downgrading the service available to some of their existing customers and saving themselves some money at our expense.
2. I couldn't find a way for the maps to be included in the scheduled updates - so now I have a weather application that doesn't cover "My" cities, and only auto-updates half of the information that is available - leaving the large map data for a real-time update when I am unlikely to have access to my free wifi connection.
Is it just me, or has the qualification for being a "star in the Symbian OS firmament" just dropped a peg or two ?!
Unregistered wrote:I was diappointed in the new version ..... / ..... 1. Being outside the USA in Asia, I suddenly found that most of "My" cities no longer had a "Current Condition" - so I have a weather application that can't tell me the local weather .... / .... Intellicast.com - doesn't provide this service, but clearly they provide it from some cities, and certainly I can see all "My" cities current condition on the Intellicast main web-site, so this looks like Epocware just didn't pay for all the cities and are downgrading the service available ..... / .... Is it just me, or has the qualification for being a "star in the Symbian OS firmament" just dropped a peg or two ?!
You'll see from the comments above, starting at the second one, that I think the same. You have gone one step further with the speculation and been to the Intellicast website to check it out. So yes, I would agree that there have been a few pegs slipped.
It certainly is a lovely application, but I must say I am disappointed to hear from chrsfrwll that you cannot now input custom locations using latitude and longitude coordinates. That is a serious step backwards. I can't believe epocware have done it. I think Steve should review the score, to be honest.
I think this is a great update. The only things I am missing now, compared to the old one, is:
1. Current weather
2. Chill factor
3. Wind gusts
4. Precipitation
And why would you want those things in a weather app?
I'm sticking to v4.05...
I prefer worldmate which you can download and use for free which, although it doesn't have weather maps, does speak the weather forecast and also has currency too!
it is in deed a nice ap, but as i daily use my bicycle for going to workd 10km journey one way, plus some visit during the day, so i would gladly use somthing more precised like this
http://www.meteociel.fr/getprevi.php?code=33214&tendance=
which i bookmark in my nokia E61, and check in the morning via wifi before choosing what to wear
I hate to dig up such an old thread, but i MUST know what theme you are running for this review? Love the dark and simple background. Thanks!
Regarding the backwards momentum of the product, I can only call it and the review 'lacking'; the review for not making it plain that the latest version culls features yet demands the same price and the app for sliding behind despite the version number moving forward.
Very disappointing...