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Popular weather prediction app CARROT Weather was today updated to version 6.0, introducing a refreshed design with changes to the user interface and feature set. The app now features a garden, which is the new default look of the app.

carrot-weather.png

The garden is designed to grow and change over time, with little robots pruning trees, watering plants, and delivering supplies throughout the day. The garden resets at the start of each month for a dynamic experience throughout the year. While the garden is the default design, premium users can opt to keep their current layouts.

CARROT Weather includes a new Hourly Forecast with a data point picker for selecting weather data that will show up on the main screen, plus there are more than a dozen layout options available in the Settings section of the app. Premium users can choose new styles for Weather Alerts, Minutely Forecast, Hourly Forecast, and Daily Forecast.

The app includes weather news that provides insight into major weather events that are happening around the globe. Articles are sourced from Accuweather and stories for the local area will appear higher up in the layout. CARROT Weather is also gaining yesterday's temperature, which is a new popup that compares the current daily temperature with yesterday's weather when the app is first opened in the morning.

CARROT Weather can be downloaded from the App Store for free, but unlocking additional features requires the premium version, priced starting at $20/year. [Direct Link]

Article Link: CARROT Weather Gains Updated Design With Garden Layout and More
 
I subscribed for a year, and meh. Doesn’t compete to Dark Sky. If only there wasn’t a one time fee of $50-$80, but I understand that subscription models pay more over time.
I’ve also come to realize that more apps that have subscription based fees, tend to have developers less active in trying to refine their product being sold. Maybe that’s just me.
 
I subscribed for a year, and meh. Doesn’t compete to Dark Sky. If only there wasn’t a one time fee of $50-$80, but I understand that subscription models pay more over time.
I’ve also come to realize that more apps that have subscription based fees, tend to have developers less active in trying to refine their product being sold. Maybe that’s just me.
Maybe that's just you, but it's definitely not the case. This whole post is about major updates to the app. Plus the weather data that they get is not all free. This is one of the few subscription plans that makes complete sense to me.
 
I’m still on a grand fathered subscription that is only $3.99 a year. The features locked behind the most expensive tier won’t add anything of value for me personally. I wish more apps with subscriptions constantly got updated the way this app does.
 
I subscribed for a year, and meh. Doesn’t compete to Dark Sky. If only there wasn’t a one time fee of $50-$80, but I understand that subscription models pay more over time.
I’ve also come to realize that more apps that have subscription based fees, tend to have developers less active in trying to refine their product being sold. Maybe that’s just me.
I find apps with subscriptions or at least the ones I subscribe to like Carrot weather get updated more frequently then those with one and done payments. The Apple Watch complications are my main draw to Carrot weather.
 
I understand developers need to earn a living. But charging $20-$70 a year when you have a perfectly fine weather app built into the iPhone is a big ask.

Yeah, I have to admit this seems bonkers to me—I didn’t realize until just now that they gamified the weather app, which seems dumb but I’m sure it’s addictive to watch the ‘garden’ grow. Me? I still miss Dark Sky’s interface.
 
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I've turned off my subscription for Carrot and have tried to use Apple's Weather App as my primary weather tool. But Apple's Weather Maps are making that very, very hard to do.
 
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WHY is it a subscription?! Just let me pay like $70 once for a lifetime of features!
Read their FAQ....

"The subscription is necessary because weather data is very expensive. Without charging extra for the subscription, in just one year it would cost CARROT more to supply weather data than a single upfront payment for the app. So CARROT's Maker either had to charge via a subscription or not add these awesome features at all."

Answer is right there.
 
I understand developers need to earn a living. But charging $20-$70 a year when you have a perfectly fine weather app built into the iPhone is a big ask.
I totally get where you're coming from. But I've found that I get more frequent and earlier weather alerts from Carrot than I do from Apple's Weather app, even though they're both using the same source. Carrot alerts me to precipitation and severe weather long before Apple's sends the same alerts. For me, that's worth a couple of dollars a month.
 
I understand developers need to earn a living. But charging $20-$70 a year when you have a perfectly fine weather app built into the iPhone is a big ask.
Where do you see $70 a year? Please share.....

Version 6.0 is free with an optional subscription.

There are three subscription levels:

  1. Premium ($4.99/month or $19.99/year) provides additional features like weather data sources, notifications, maps, customization, widgets, and Apple Watch complications.
  2. Premium Ultra ($9.99/month or $39.99/year) includes all the features of Premium, plus rain, lightning, and storm cell notifications (where available), super-res radar (in the U.S.), Locations list forecasts, a weather maps widget, and quick data source switching.
  3. Premium Family ($14.99/month or $59.99/year) includes all the features of Premium Ultra, with the added benefit of being shareable with up to five family members via Apple’s Family Sharing service.
Built in weather app in IOS uses one weather source. Anyone who depends on the weather daily for work or pleasure will tell you ONE weather source isn't always accurate in different parts of the country/world . You can go to https://www.forecastadvisor.com/ to see this. Would rather pay money to have options (ie. I have a weather station and would like my local weather to come from that, not a weather source at an airport 15 miles away from me...... Carrot allows me to do this).
 
While the garden is the default design, premium users can opt to keep their current layouts.

Interesting up-sell. Kind of wish Microsoft would do this.

"Don't like the changes we made? Give us money and you can go back to the old way you liked better!"

Considering the choice now is "Don't like Bing ads infesting your OS from top to bottom, even on Enterprise? Too bad!"
 
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