weather

MSN Weather, like all of those MSN app, are actually pretty cool little offerings--they're Metro, minimalist and do what they're suppose to do. In 2010, MSN Weather was for many their first weather app. Not much has happened though in terms of updates, which is a shame since Mango offers a lot e.g. Live Tiles.

That's why we became a little excited to see an image of an updated version that is coming down the road. In the above screenshot from Microsoft's Jeff Wilcox (of 4th & Mayor fame), we see that it finally now has that Live Tile with the current temperature, making this app very useful for many and a good free alternative. No other details are known currently but the app is being beta tested meaning release in probably only a few weeks away.

It's great to see Microsoft finally updating some of these apps though we think it would have looked better 4 months ago.

Update: Regarding Jeff's grey theme, there's no shenanigans there. That is simply one of the theme's on his unlocked Lumia 800 purchased through Expansys. While that's a great theme, he did lose out by not having the "Nokia Blue" accent color.

Source: Image, Twitter; Thanks, Jan T., for the tip!

WeatherMaster is a simple, yet detailed weather app for your Windows Phone. When we first took a look at WeatherMaster we found it to be a very nice weather app choice for your Windows Phone.  WeatherMaster was recently updated to version 2.0 to bring mango features into the mix.

Some of the key features to the update include:

• You can add new cities/locations (unlimited) or use your current position (GPS) as well
• Seven day forecast with detailed view and temperature chart
• US and Metric units are supported (Fahrenheit/Celsius, mile/km)
• Mango Live Tile support with current weather condition and two days forecast info for selected city / current location
• Pin as many Live Tiles (with city weather) as you want
• Weather Map with Weather/Cloud/US Radar layers to check out nearby locations quickly
• Supports Dark/Light mode and Tile icon uses your Accent color as background to integrate perfectly
• Intelligent caching of weather data to avoid unnecessary data transfer

You still can't animate the radar layer on the weather map view (maybe in the next update) but it's nice to be able to add locations to your city list from the map view.  There is a free, two-week trial version available that is fully functional. The full version of WeatherMaster is running $1.99 and you can find it here at the Windows Phone Marketplace.

We've received numerous tips this morning on the Windows Phone weather app Weather. Weather is the official Weather Channel app for your Windows Phone and it has been updated to version 1.7. The update Mangofies the app.

There are a few cosmetic changes to the app but the most noticeable change is the Mango fast resume and multiple live tile support. You can now pin any forecast city to your Start Menu and un-pin the tile from with the Weather.

From your location list, go into the edit screen and you'll see three options. One to give the location a nickname, one to set the location as your default location, and another to show as a live tile. Check the box to show the location as a live tile, save and the tile is created on your Start Screen. Un-check the box and the tile is removed.

The live tile has two sides. The front shows your current conditions and the back shows a radar thumbnail for that particular location. I'm a little surprised that the back side shows a radar image. If you've got clear skies, it seems a waste of resources. If there's a way to customize or change what's displayed on the back side of the live tile, I haven't found it yet. 

All in all, the update improves things.  Overall, Weather seems to have a little more zip to it and while the cosmetic changes are minor, they give the app somewhat of a cleaner appearance.

Weather is a free, ad-supported application for your Windows Phone and you can find it here at the Windows Phone Marketplace. Keep in mind you'll need to update your phone to Windows Phone 7.5 before you can use Weather v1.7.

Thanks to everyone who tipped us on this!

The popular Windows Phone weather app, Accuweather.com, has gone Mango. The update gives the app the fast resume feature and, most notably, the ability to pin multiple weather tiles to your Start Screen.

Just go to your locations, tap hold on a forecast city and you can choose to pin the location to your Start Screen and give it a custom name. Tapping on one of these tiles launches the Accuweather.com app and sets the weather information to that location.

Accuweather.com is a free application for your Windows Phone and you can download it here at the Windows Phone Web Marketplace.  If you happen to see any additional changes to Accuweather.com feel free to share in the comments.

Thanks goes out to Miguel for tipping us on this!

Our favorite weather app Weather Live (previous coverage), is about to hit the big v3.0 today. This new version is for the Mango peeps out there, bringing some excellent new functionality to the Metro themed weather program. New features include:

• Multiple locations with secondary tiles (in paid version).
• Display location, next forecast (today or tomorrow) and alerts in the back tiles.
• Background Agent to automatically update locations when you are on the go (in paid version).

As you can see in the video hands on above, the new tiles add some excellent options to the mix and with fast-app resuming and improved Mango scrolling, the app is better than ever. Expect version 3.0 to appear today or tomorrow. You can pick up Weather Live here in the Marketplace (both paid and unlimited trial).

USA Today has received an update to kick-start August into motion. The most notable feature added in this version is live tile support. You will now be able view latest headlines in a photo mash-up. The full list of changes/features added are as follows:

• Live Tile - A photo mash-up based on our latest headlines
• Latest news videos on a dedicated video panel
• Sub-section headlines: hold down any of the section tiles to bring up a list of sub-sections to choose from, i.e. Sports > MLB headlines. Tile will default to that subsection.
• Photo caption and credit for articles
• Recall last league viewed in Scores
• Major League Soccer scores added
• Celsius toggle for weather temps
• Support for international weather locations (limited maps)
• Weather alerts on current conditions screen
• Various bug fixes

Be sure to keep up-to-date with the latest news, sport headlines and weather forecasts. You can download USA Today (Zune link), for free, from the Marketplace.

Thanks goes out to David and everyone else who tipped us on this!

Good news for you Weather Channel fans as that app gets a bump to version 1.5 today. Not too much has changed but there is a whole new section called iWitness Weather (cute). Basically it's localized pics people took of, well, the weather in your area. Sub-sections include nearby, featured and categories. Oddly enough, there doesn't seem to be a way to upload photos to the feature, which makes it a one way street for now.

The photos are kind of interesting, though we see some shots of dogs and people too meaning "verification" seems lax. Not exactly a killer feature, but nice anyways. And is it us or is the animated-weather new? You can grab the update in the Marketplace here.

(Thanks, David M., for the heads up!)

Here we go again. The rabidly popular 'Weather Live' app which we reported on last week has disappeared from the Marketplace. The app, which started off at 3 stars quickly rose up in popularity, even bumping the #1 in News & Weather WPCentral app to #2--a first since we released our app months ago.

Now, despite receiving an update or two (we forget), the app is gone from the Marketplace without a trace. Was it the pulling weather data from an un-credited source? Did it violate the Marketplace rules? We're not sure but we hope it returns and soon as it's one of our favorites. The current version still works on your device though, so don't uninstall. This is one of numerous apps that have disappeared recently, including the Colbert Report, MTV News, Kayak, Project Sunburst and Cartoon TV (before it returned, gutted).

We've reached out to the developer for comment and we'll hopefully post a response if/when they get back to us.

Update: We've heard back from the developer--

"The app is using the undocumented (but very popular) Google weather API and late yesterday, there was a major outage at the back end. As such, all live tiles stopped working at the time. I suspect it is because Google blocked my server's access since I have ~1500 queries per hour on the hour...

I made several changes to alleviate the peak load and fortunately they seem to unblocked me this morning. So live tiles started working again. To hopefully ensure users are not subject to the downtime any more, I pulled the app from marketplace.

I do want to come back as this project is really a worthy one to me. However, I am trying to find a good source of data. As you may know, many of them prohibit use by mobile applications."

(Thanks, @Sogeman, for the heads up!)