Created by Italian developer Cosimo Talò, Wandering Weather lets you check weather conditions for your car trips and plan accordingly.
The idea is simple enough: using data returned by Dark Sky’s Forecast.io service, the app lets you add a starting point and a destination with location data based on Apple Maps. You can choose a start time then hit the large “Calculate route” button to switch to a map view that will display forecasts for the selected date and time and subsequent “checkpoints” along the way. You can tap on transit points to get more information about the forecast such as temperature and probability of precipitation, or you can unlock the premium features with a $0.99 In-App Purchase and see travel details. If you don’t want to unlock the extra features, the app is perfectly usable in its free version, but it will display iAds.
What Wandering Weather lacks is interface polish and refinements throughout the app. The main screen and detail views for travel and forecast information could use a more elegant presentation; because Wandering Weather is meant to be used to check forecasts for future road trips, there should be an indication about the accuracy of Forecast.io data – I was able to load forecasts for 2016, but I doubt those will remain unchanged.
Wandering Weather makes cool use of Forecast.io and Apple Maps, but I’m hoping that Caló will improve the overall experience with a refreshed design, more date and forecast options, and the ability to define transportation methods (car is the only one available now). You can get Wandering Weather for free on the App Store.