While I understand the business side of shutting down Pocket Weather, I also really like the app. So it’s with some resentment that I have finally started looking for an alternative. The problem is Pocket Weather has become part of my daily workflow, so losing functionality isn’t something I want.
I set out on a quest to find a weather app that will allow me as close to the same functionality of Pocket Weather as possible. The option that seems to have the most “It’s not Pocket Weather, but it’s the best I’ve found” is:
Aus Weather Australia
There’s a lot to like here and it does most of what Pocket Weather does. One of the biggest complaints about the other replacement apps is that there’s no widget — there is here and it’s pretty good. Some of the other features put Aus Weather Australia as close as I’ve found to feature parity with Pocket Weather. You can see the various options in the screenshots below:
The feature listing is reasonably comprehensive:
- Locations all around Australia
- 7 Day forecasts
- 3 hourly updates for weather
- Radars and maps
- Historical data
- Marine forecasts
- Widgets
- Weather notifications
- Warnings and alerts
- Detailed data such as wind-speed, direction etc
It’s an ad supported app with a $2 in-app fee to remove the ads. If you choose Aus Weather Australia, support the dev and drop them a couple of bucks!
Weatherzone
Another of the mainstream options supported by ads, or you can pay to remove them. The feedback seems to be quite mixed with some users reporting that the layout can be a bit confusing whereas others are very happy with the capability of the app, widget and other features.
I’ve only had a quick look myself and it’s quite functional, but I’m not sure it’s going to fully feature what I want from a weather app. I quite like the widget, which currently has me considering if this is indeed the option I’ll use going forward.
The feature set is pretty comprehensive, but if you want the full kit you’ll have to pay a subscription fee.
- Real-time observations from hundreds of automated weather stations across the country: Temperature, wind speed and direction, dew point, relative humidity, pressure and rain since 9 am
- 7 day forecasts of minimum, maximum temperature, icon, rain probability/likely amount and 9am/3pm wind.
- Hourly temperature, chance of rain and wind forecasts in our interactive viewer.
- Real-time weather warnings from the Bureau of Meteorology
- Weatherpulse daily video magazine
- Lightning Alerts for your suburb
- Local and National rain radar, Himawari-8 satellite and lightning maps
- National Video forecast from our meteorologists
- Warning and Forecast Push Notifications
- Gorgeous weather photography submitted by you!
- Exclusive Australian synoptic map
BOM Weather
If you want the full story, you go straight to the source right? The BOM is where Pocket Weather go it’s data feed from and they’ve got some of the same functions in their app. You’ll get a radar feed, a multi-day forecast and weather warnings. Sadly though, there is no widget for your home screen.
The feature set for the BOM app is simple but thorough:
- Weather Conditions
- Forecasts
- Weather Warnings
- Radar for various locations
- Location search to check weather around Australia
To help the other Pocket Weather refugees, share your current weather app with us and it’s features
Aus Weather is not a long term viable replacement for Pocket Weather as its app dev publicly stated in the Whirlpool thread discussing Aus Weather, that he has no longer has any Android devices and will be coding for IOS.
Thanks for this article. Exactly what I needed. RIP Pocket weather.
Aus Weather is the undoubted winner. It’s rather bland but powerfully in its favour is that it appears most of the data comes direct from BOM.
Weatherzone certainly looks good but it is wildly inaccurate.
BOM’s own is pretty basic and cant be recommended.
Pity Pocket didnt make its code open source so someone could pick it up.
Has anyone found a Wear OS compatible weather app that uses BOM as a source?
Snowflake from the maker of istat menus is an option (a rather expensive one though).
In the Whirlpool thread discussiing the IOS Snowflake app, the dev said he might eventually think about considering doing something for Android, if the other competing Android weather app projects don’t work out. In other words, he’s happy being an IOS app dev and Android gets tossed in the bin.
Snowflake on iOS is fantastic, and endorsed by Russell from Shiftyjelly.
I hope they bring it to Android soon.
Sadly there just isn’t anything that compares with Pocket Weather – I’ve tried plenty, and have begrudgingly settled on Aus Weather Australia as the best of the rest of the apps that use BOM data, but it has some deficiencies (non-exhaustive list, in no particular order): – Background updates of widget are hit-and-miss (maybe just infrequent?) – There’s no selection or reordering of tiles on the dashboard – Radar is not available on the dashboard – Graphs only display a single data series at a time (air temp or rain or feels like, etc, but you have to swap between… Read more »
I agree with your points. I also wish the 7 day forecasts had more information, such as wind, rain%, sunrise and sunset, rather than just the description provided by the BOM. The inability to select multiple series or layers for the graph (air temp, feels like, wind), and then scroll as per Pocket Weather is also missed. I also tried Weatherzone and Willy Weather, but found the layouts not so good, and the forecasts inaccurate (don’t ask me how, but they differed for my suburb vs BOM and pocket weather). Oh and the radar in Weatherzone is the worst I’ve… Read more »
I’ve been trying out heaps of Pocket Weather alternatives (also with resentment ; ) What I’ve settled on is Willy Weather – it doesn’t have all the features but it has the important ones and nothing besides! And it’s good for at-a-glance.
I found Weather Zone impossibly ornate with useless features, and the BoM app is clunky and just bad. I’ll check out Aus Weather Australia though thanks, not sure if I tried that one.