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Best menu bar weather app?

J

jon08

macrumors 68000
Original poster
Nov 14, 2008
1,885
104
I'm currently using Meteo, which I find to be a great app, especially for having the option of cycling whichever cities you want. The only issue that it has is that it hasn't been updated in quite a while, so it's sometimes buggy - for example sometimes when it's updating the weather conditions it just won't update so you'd have to quit and restart the app.

Also, what I find slightly irritating is that it only uses Weather.com server. The problem is they only update weather conditions every couple of hours, while for something as unstable as the weather can be, they should at least be offering hourly updates. Therefore, the temp. Meteo displays according to the Weather.com website might lag for a couple of hrs, which can be annoying.

Does anyone recommend any other such apps?
 
J

jon08

macrumors 68000
Original poster
Nov 14, 2008
1,885
104
I've tried WeatherDock, but it's inconvenient because it doesn't offer the "city-cycling" option, i.e. it will only display the weather conditions for 1 city at a time, so no. :(

Anything else?


P.S.: yeah, I do know Wunderground as well, but what I'm looking for is a neat weather app for my menubar. It's kind of pointless having to go to the website each time you wanted to check the temp. etc.
 
gr8tfly

gr8tfly

macrumors 603
Oct 29, 2006
5,333
99
~119W 34N
waffles123 said:
Which one takes up the least RAM and CPU resources?
Click to expand...

I'm only running Meteorologist, so can't comment on the other, but its resources are trivial. RSIZE 14.5MB. No CPU, unless doing an update - then, a couple precent is all for a few seconds. You'll never notice.

edit update: I found a slew of Dock error messages in system.log. I finally tracked them down to Meteo. They don't seem to cause any system problems or problems with Meteo, but it does show some SL incompatibility. The errors happen every time the Dock is updated, which happens when you enter and exit Expose and/or Spaces.

WeatherDock is nice, but doesn't entirely sleep between updates. I doubt it makes a difference in the real world, but it's a nit with me (it's only 0.1%CPU).

So, I've found WeatherVane. It's been updated for SL, sleeps soundly between updates, and works. BUT, it's a very simple app - only one city at a time, and not very customizable. Otherwise, it does the job if you want current conditions and temp in your MenuBar.
 
J

jon08

macrumors 68000
Original poster
Nov 14, 2008
1,885
104
Has anyone found any new weather menubar apps? I'm really growing impatient with Meteo because it's pretty much at least once a day that I must quit and restart the app to work properly again (because it will get stuck at Loading... when trying to update weather conditions).

I'm looking for a weather app that has the city-cycling option and displays at least the city name + temperature...
 
Outrigger

Outrigger

macrumors 68000
Dec 22, 2008
1,765
96
jon08 said:
Has anyone found any new weather menubar apps? I'm really growing impatient with Meteo because it's pretty much at least once a day that I must quit and restart the app to work properly again (because it will get stuck at Loading... when trying to update weather conditions).

I'm looking for a weather app that has the city-cycling option and displays at least the city name + temperature...
Click to expand...

Try weathersnitch. its cycling through 3 cities on mine right now showing weather and temp. takes tiny space. and it works with SL.
 
J

jon08

macrumors 68000
Original poster
Nov 14, 2008
1,885
104
Outrigger said:
Try weathersnitch. its cycling through 3 cities on mine right now showing weather and temp. takes tiny space. and it works with SL.
Click to expand...

Yeah man I've tried that one too, but it doesn't look neat in the menubar... the fonts are too small in the city name + temperature option. :(
 
P

plaintiger

macrumors member
Sep 3, 2008
40
1
i know this is an old thread now, but!

i prefer MenuWeather over WeatherDock, if only because it can switch which city's weather it displays based on your current location, rather than WeatherDock's comparatively lame-o ability to switch based only on a schedule pre-entered by the user.

users have been complaining about problems with the paid update to 3.2 though, so i'd stick with MenuWeather Lite, which is free and doesn't seem to have the problems the paid version does.
 
shakeman0

shakeman0

macrumors 6502a
Jul 20, 2009
632
22
plaintiger said:
i prefer MenuWeather over WeatherDock, if only because it can switch which city's weather it displays based on your current location, rather than WeatherDock's comparatively lame-o ability to switch based only on a schedule pre-entered by the user.

users have been complaining about problems with the paid update to 3.2 though, so i'd stick with MenuWeather Lite, which is free and doesn't seem to have the problems the paid version does.
Click to expand...

Thanks for bringing the thread back! I need a nice weather app.
 
djc6

djc6

macrumors 6502a
Aug 11, 2007
869
456
Cleveland, OH
WeatherSnitch and WeatherDock both no longer work since the weather.com feeds they were using have been discontinued:

http://www.colourful-apps.com/news/item/190/WeatherDock_-_The_end_of_an_Era

http://sofweb.com/weathersnitch.php

What else is everyone using? Preferably free.

EDIT: I see Meteo uses weather.com as well, I wonder if it too will stop working on Nov 15th. Developer's website doesn't say anything.

http://heat-meteo.sourceforge.net/

WeatherMan Lite seems decent so far:

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/weatherman-lite/id421337962?mt=12
 
Last edited:
soloer

soloer

macrumors 6502a
Sep 27, 2004
879
197
Omaha
djc6 said:
EDIT: I see Meteo uses weather.com as well, I wonder if it too will stop working on Nov 15th. Developer's website doesn't say anything.
Click to expand...

I hope it doesn't stop working as that is what I use. Every time I try something different, I just find something missing or not to my liking compared to Meteo.
 
Weaselboy

Weaselboy

Moderator
Staff member
Jan 23, 2005
34,137
15,602
California
I have used just about every product listed here and settled on MenuWeather from the app store for $1.99. Rather than relying on free weather data (which I think it at the root of the problem with most of these apps), the dev. uses a paid service called CustomWeather.
 
P

plaintiger

macrumors member
Sep 3, 2008
40
1
i use MenuWeather too. it's just a little oddly-designed - every time there's a special weather alert, for example, i have to stop and think for a second before i remember how to locate and read the actual alert - and the app has had other problems in the past, but - touch wood - they appear to have been largely ironed out now. the app's been very well-behaved for me for some months, and MenuWeather's automatic location function, when it works, is one of the finest features any weather app could have (at least for those running it on laptops that they actually travel with).

it would be great - for those times when automatic location detection doesn't work for one reason or another - to have a means of choosing a city quickly and easily from right within the menus, instead of having to open the prefs, go to the locations tab, and drag and drop the cities to reorder them, which is a very clunky process. but this is a minor complaint in light of how often i actually have to do it, and in light of all MenuWeather's positive features.

that's what *i* think, at least. take it fwiw. :cool:
 
Z

Zach23

macrumors regular
Jun 7, 2010
119
8
cjred said:
yep Living Earth is very nice! especially in rMBP
Click to expand...

The thing with Living Earth is that it forces the computer to use the NVIDIA graphics card always. I'm trying to find a new weather app to keep the integrated graphics on to conserve battery.
 
C

cjred

macrumors member
Dec 1, 2009
40
0
Zach23 said:
The thing with Living Earth is that it forces the computer to use the NVIDIA graphics card always. I'm trying to find a new weather app to keep the integrated graphics on to conserve battery.
Click to expand...

Then use thermometer.app
 
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