Minimalistic Gesture-Controlled Weather App Haze Hits the App Store

[MacRumors]

Haze, a new weather app from Robocat, offers up a clean, colorful design and animated backgrounds that accompany weather forecasts.

It is similar in appearance to weather app Solar, but Haze incorporates touch gestures allowing users to navigate through information like temperature, sunrise and sunset times, rain predictions, and wind factor.

Despite its surprisingly minimal appearance, Haze is feature rich. The app includes different unlockable colored themes for a personalized look and it also provides a five day forecast of the weather with a downward swipe.

Haze can be downloaded for $0.99 from the App Store. [Direct Link]

Article Link: Minimalistic Gesture-Controlled Weather App Haze Hits the App Store

[orangebluedevil]

Not working for me. Constantly says that Forecast Temporarily Not Available.

[imgonephishin]

I really appreciate the design of a lot of these gesture-controlled apps but the problem is that there are few clear platform standards (pinch to zoom, etc.) and it basically means as the number of gesture apps grows, I would have to relearn the app each time I used one.

[TC03]

Originally Posted by imgonephishin

I really appreciate the design of a lot of these gesture-controlled apps but the problem is that there are few clear platform standards (pinch to zoom, etc.) and it basically means as the number of gesture apps grows, I would have to relearn the app each time I used one.

Agreed. Gestures based-app are like shortkey-based apps for your desktop: quick and useful once your learn it. But you have to learn it, which is too much of a hassle for something as simple as the weather. Gestures should be complementary to buttons.

Nevertheless, I haven't checked out this specific app. But in general, the above is my opinion on gesture based apps.

[HarryKeogh]

No minimalism for me, thank you very much.

When it's sunny I just want to see an anthropomorphic sun wearing sunglasses.

[petsounds]

Why the heck do you guys (Macrumors) promote every weather app that comes out? This is getting silly.

[nagromme]

Originally Posted by TC03

Agreed. Gestures based-app are like shortkey-based apps for your desktop: quick and useful once your learn it. But you have to learn it, which is too much of a hassle for something as simple as the weather. Gestures should be complementary to buttons.

Nevertheless, I haven't checked out this specific app. But in general, the above is my opinion on gesture based apps.

Exactly. Gestures are the new keyboard shortcut!

Gesture-heavy apps can LOOK cool (see: Metro) but except for a few very standard gestures (cross-out delete, pinch zoom, pull to reload) they shouldn't be necessary for anything.

I consider these gesture apps novelties. I salute them, but they're not the future.

Originally Posted by Razeus

I don't understand these weather apps. I simply pull the notificatin menu down when I want to check the weather. Gives me all the info I need for the today and 5 days ahead. What more do people need?

Weather shouldn't be something for people to manage. Just info.

I want to know a lot more than the widget will show me (and Yahoo! weather doesn't seem all that accurate for me).

I want to know how much time I have before a storm hits. I want to know what part of the day tomorrow will be good weather.

I use Dark Sky plus Weather Underground or Weatherbug (haven't decided) on iPhone. On iPad I use Dark Sky plus Wundermap.

[Virtualball]

Originally Posted by nagromme

Exactly. Gestures are the new keyboard shortcut!

Gesture-heavy apps can LOOK cool (see: Metro) but except for a few very standard gestures (cross-out delete, pinch zoom, pull to reload) they shouldn't be necessary for anything.

I consider these gesture apps novelties. I salute them, but they're not the future.

Well, to be fair, those gestures are only "standard" because you're used to them. Theoretically, gesture-based apps should be intuitive if they were designed correctly. Gestures are the future/now*, but improperly designed gesture-based apps aren't.

*Remember that two finger scroll, swipe for next/last, two finger tap, three finger swipes on OSX, and more are gestures that we use every day.

[WilliamTM]

Originally Posted by TC03

Agreed. Gestures based-app are like shortkey-based apps for your desktop: quick and useful once your learn it. But you have to learn it, which is too much of a hassle for something as simple as the weather. Gestures should be complementary to buttons.

Nevertheless, I haven't checked out this specific app. But in general, the above is my opinion on gesture based apps.

They are (almost) complementary to buttons - the buttons at the bottom control access to each "page" of info. The only hidden thing is the settings and forecast data, but the app gives you a quick short tutorial at the start to show you where they are, and it's "drag down", which most iOS users are used to now. You can drag down to reveal the forecast once, and it'll remember to keep it open, and the only things in the settings worth paying attention to are the themes, too, so you can pretty much do that once and then ignore them.

I bought the app myself and so far I love it. It's very pretty to look at and gives you enough info. It's obviously designed to be pretty, and not to be a detailed super accurate forecast of every last detail over the next decade, but it gives me enough info (temp, forecast, and if it'll rain), so I'm happy with it.

As for "enough of these silly weather apps", I'd rather have more than we need on the App Store. It gives people choice, and there are many other categories where there's only *one* app that does what I want, yet I'd really like more choice.

[andy318]

Looks really cool. But i prefer being able to see these things without having to click many times.

[vjl323]

Originally Posted by andy318

Looks really cool. But i prefer being able to see these things without having to click many times.

What app is that? Looks pretty nice!

[Razeus]

I don't understand these weather apps. I simply pull the notificatin menu down when I want to check the weather. Gives me all the info I need for the today and 5 days ahead. What more do people need?

Weather shouldn't be something for people to manage. Just info.

[theanonymousbob]

Why do I need another weather app? If I just want to know the temperature, the standard weather app does the trick just fine. If I want to see a radar, I open the Weather Channel app. The fact that people keep thinking a different take on the same old information is worthy of an iOS app investment is mindbogglingly absurd.

[andy318]

Originally Posted by vjl323

What app is that? Looks pretty nice!

WeatherPro

[Orlandoech.com]

Originally Posted by andy318

WeatherPro

Glitchy and for "minimalistic" it's very gesture confusing and the lack of even instructions make this a no go for me.

[Mr.damien]

Originally Posted by andy318

Looks really cool. But i prefer being able to see these things without having to click many times.

Yeah, the App trend now seems to show the less possible on a screen which is already small.

[Long]

I appreciate apps like this as experimentation - a way to try new ideas. But this feels like a concept in search of an app.

It's a great concept for an interface. It's a beautiful interface. But as a weather app, it's less useful than the stock iOS app, and requires more taps to get the same information.

I encourage this sort of experimentation, and I hope the cost of the app funds development of further new concepts, or a more useful implementation of the concepts they have. At the very least, I hope it encourages developers of more "utilitarian" apps to step up the level of design.

I agree that a solely gesture-based app is a recipe for trouble. I've deleted both Snapseed and iPhoto for iPad because they felt like too much trouble to learn. Something like Clear or Haze is easy enough to learn and remember, because these apps basically do one thing. More complex apps need chrome on the screen, with gestures as shortcuts.

[Arelunde]

I bought this (fortunately at the sale price) and deleted it right off. Someone mentioned it appears to only provide info on one location and, as far as I could determine, it has to be your GPS location. That hardly is serviceable. I couldn't find a way to enter zip codes for weather info, nor to have more than one location. Also, there didn't seem to be a way to mute the oh-so-cute sound effects that would drive me nuts after a while.

My favorite weather app is Living Earth (iPhone) and Living Earth HD or Living Earth Desktop for Mac. Very cool Earth satellite images with cloud formations plus localized weather for as many locations as you want. The Earth's satellite photo, constantly updated, rotates to your selected location with a tap. Weather is pretty accurate as well.

[inselstudent]

Seems like there can never be enough fancy looking weather apps. The main issues with all those is the poor weather data they use which makes them pretty much useless, at least to me, living in Germany.

So, again, tried many, but always return to Weather Pro. Stable data is simply worth more than a fancy UI. It's a pity though.

[inscrewtable]

I want a weather app that can link to the maps app and the global positioning system as well as real time radar connected to the facetime camera with raindrop recognition, so that if I'm caught out in a light shower my ipod will direct me home via the best route to dodge the raindrops as they are falling in real time thus arriving home almost completely dry.

I don't really want that I just made it up. But now that I think about it...

[ArtOfWarfare]

Originally Posted by inscrewtable

if I'm caught out in a light shower my ipod will direct me home via the best route to dodge the raindrops as they are falling in real time thus arriving home almost completely dry.

"Walk forward 5 steps. Leap forward. Slow down. Do a barrel roll."

Pretty sure that your best solution if you want to arrive home completely dry is always going to be to only walk in covered walkways or wait out the storm inside somewhere.

[Lark.Landon]

Originally Posted by ArtOfWarfare

"Walk forward 5 steps. Leap forward. Slow down. Do a barrel roll."

Pretty sure that your best solution if you want to arrive home completely dry is always going to be to only walk in covered walkways or wait out the storm inside somewhere.

Or to do barrel rolls exclusively. But most people don't know that.

[pubwvj]

Ugh. Too much glitz and not enough substance.

All of this belies the issue that the weather forecasts simply are not very accurate. Looking at the sky and saying tomorrow will probably be the same as today with a chance of being different is more reliable.

[sagnier]

Like Clear, this app is a gimmicky version of something that should be quite simple. It's essentially dull information, and adding gestures just makes the task of finding it more annoying.

It's the opposite of when I use a paper map and find myself doing pinches to zoom in or out. That gesture feels entirely natural. But here I'm forced to use them, and they feel entirely unnatural.

But...it'll survive or it wont. Good luck to the developer. Probably the cute name and the 'novelty' of being gesture-based means it'll do well initially.

[ghost187]

Thank you macrumors for making me waste 99c. No big deal, but this app is not unique what so ever. It forces me to take extra steps to give me info that should be presented as soon as I tap the app. Also, to add insult to injury, you need to know what gesture to perform to get the desired info. According to Apple, average iPhone user has 500 apps, and if they all used unique gestures, we would all be frustrated with our phones.