Shootout: Weather Applications

Here it is.  High Noon at the MTS Corral.  We’re standing at the crossroads in the center of town.  Ahead of us, the doors to the saloon swing open as our first competitor strides into the street…Fizz Weather.  The wind starts to blow gently, just enough for a tumbleweed to kick up some dust on the far side of town.  As the dust clears, we can see our second competitor striding up the road…Spb Weather.  The two stand at opposite ends of this crossroad, staring each other down, their hands gently resting on the six shooters hanging from their hips.  Then, a noise sounds behind us.  SBSH Pocket Weather has arrived, irons hanging loosely from his belt.  The game is afoot. We move quietly out of the way as these hardened competitors draw closer to one another. Three will enter this battle, but we already know only one will escape unscathed.  Let the Shootout begin.

Intro: There are dozens of weather applications out there.  In fact, a quick Handango search identified nearly 100 separate applications for Windows Mobile, not to mention all of the web-based applets.  So, choosing which ones would be meeting here outside the MTS Corral was not easy.

In the end, I chose three of the most popular weather applications for Windows Mobile 6 Professional: Fizz Weather, Spb Weather, and SBSH Pocket Weather.  I considered adding Weather Panel into the mix (by popular demand), but it could not get its irons strapped on (ie: it is no longer supported by the developer).  So, I went with just the three, and to be honest, I think these three represent the field of weather applications quite well.  Then again, if you have other thoughts, feel free to leave them for a possible sequel (Weather Apps. Part II)

Setup:  All of these programs downloaded in the usual way, and could be installed via Activesync from an installation package on your desktop computer or over the air via a cab file.

All three programs also offer a limited time trial, during which you can enjoy all of the features of each program.  Spb and SBSH both offer about two weeks (Spb is actually 15 days while SBSH is 14).  Fizz, however, offered a disappointing three day trial.  This was really wholly inadequate to experience all of the features offered by this program.

Once you have the programs installed, you will need to set them up be telling the program where you live.  Obviously, the world experiences a vast variety of weather patterns all at the same time.  Heck, sometimes one town can have drastically different weather than a nearby city.  So, it is critical that you are able to hone in on your location.

Fizz Weather allows you to choose from a list of major cities its database.  If you do not feel like scrolling through the list, you can also search for your Zip Code or city name.  I easily found my city of Bristow, Va.

SBSH Pocket Weather is just as easy to program.  Just select your country (and your state if you are in the US).  You can then choose your location from a list of cities or enter a city code or Zip Code.  Again, I was able to zero in on Bristow, Va. with no problem at all.

Unfortunately, I did not fare as well with Spb Weather.  Here, although there is an option to find your city by Zip Code, the program was completely unable to find my Zip Code.  As such, I was limited to selecting a location from the predetermined list of cities and states.  There were no cities listed in my county in Virginia.  The closest cities on the list were Alexandria and Washington, DC, each over 20 miles away.  Not very good at all.

In the end, I was relatively impressed by how easy it was to setup all three programs.  With each, I was up and running in a matter of minutes.

• I awarded 1 point in this category to Spb and SBSH for their lengthy trial periods which really allow you to fully test all of the features before purchasing.
• I also awarded a point to Fizz and SBSH for their full coverage city selection.  Spb Weather’s limited ability to locate cities was extremely problematic as it means that you could be viewing weather patterns for cities 20 miles or more from your location.

One feature which I did not find in any of the three programs, but would love to see in the future, is the ability to set your location by GPS.  This feature would access your GPS and give you the weather forecast for your current location.  If you moved, then the weather forecast would change as well.  This would completely eliminate the need for a city list at all.  Just configure it to your GPS, and the weather report will always be accurate for your current location, anywhere in the world.

Score for this section:

• Fizz Weather = 1
• Spb Weather = 1
• SBSH Pocket Weather = 2

Weather Source and Accuracy:  This is probably the most important category for any weather program (and, by probably, I mean definitely).  A weather program can have all of the bells, whistles, and extra features you can imagine, but if it does not give you an accurate forecast then it is really going to be pretty worthless.  Kind of like a phone which checks email, surfs the Internet, keeps your calendar, and more, but cannot make a simple phone call.  So, I knew that I was going to have to spend some time testing the accuracy of these programs.

Of course, a problem immediately arose when I started comparing the three.  I needed to find a benchmark against which to compare each of the programs.  Otherwise, there was simply no way — other than looking out my window and guessing — to determine which was more accurate than the others.  Then, my good friend, Wayne over at Gear Diary, gave me the answer when he posted about the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association’s (NOAA) weather service.  NOAA is the standard bearer for all weather applications in the United States.  It is considered by far the most accurate, and many programs obtain their data directly from NOAA (or its affiliate, weather.com.)  Interestingly, none of the programs I looked at used NOAA as their primary source for data.  So, in order to test the accuracy of each program, I compared the four-day forecast for each against the four-day forecast provided by NOAA over the course of several days.

Fizz Weather proved to be a competent weather service.  It was the most accurate of the three 40% of the time.  Fizz had extremely consistent high temperatures, however, the lows for each day tended to be considerably less consistent.   I awarded Fizz Weather 4 points in this category for its 40% accuracy rating.

Spb Weather has a long standing reputation for being terribly inaccurate.  In fact, their forums are filled with problems relating to their reliance on the Gismeteo weather service.   I have to say that Spb Weather lived up to its reputation on this one.  This program, with the Gismeteo weather service, was the most accurate only 25% of the time.  And even then, it was wildly inconsistent, hitting the mark more by happenstance than by actually predicting the correct weather.  Their forecasts were regularly 5-10 degrees off the mark.

Of course, unlike the other services, Spb does allow you to customize create a template to instruct Spb Weather to use a different weather source.  This is not particularly easy to do, however.  In fact, it requires considerable knowledge of XML coding, something which I am not about to start doing, and I know many of you are not either.  There are, however, quite a few templates in their forums which you can try if you wish.   I initially awarded Spb Weather only 2.5 points for this category.  I then gave them an additional bonus point for their template and customized weather data features.

The most accurate weather program was SBSH Pocket Weather.  SBSH hit the ark a whopping 50% of the time, and even when it was not the closest, it was still extremely consistent, with forecasts that were within five degrees of NOAA’s data almost every time.  I awarded SBSH Pocket Weather 5 points in this category for their spot on forecasting.

Score for this section:

• Fizz Weather = 4
• Spb Weather = 3.5
• SBSH Pocket Weather = 5

Updating feeds: Another important area for a weather program is updating the feeds.  All three of them rely upon Internet data feeds to convey their forecasts.  As such, they each need a data or Wifi connection to download information.  Personally, I prefer to set this to automatic and let it download data at regular intervals.  If you do not have a solid or unlimited data connection, however, you may prefer to do it differently.

Really, I thought all three did a great job of giving the user control over these updates.  They all allow you to determine whether to download updates automatically, on demand, or only when docked.  When downloading automatically, they also allow you to determine how frequently data will be downloaded.  This gives you complete control over how your data plan will be utilized and conserved.

I did find, however, that SBSH Pocket Weather stood out slightly from the others by allowing you to set each item on a different interval (above).  Fizz allowed you to toggle different items off or on, but SBSH actually allowed you to set different schedules for current conditions, images, forecast and earthquakes.   As such, while I awarded one point to each of the programs, I awarded SBSH Pocket Weather a bonus point for its extreme customization.

Score for this section:

• SBSH Pocket Weather = 2
• Fizz Weather = 1
• Spb Weather = 1

Today Screen Plugin: The today screen plugin is going to be your primary interface with each of the weather applications.  Because of its importance, each of the three developers obviously put a lot of work into the look and feel of this interface.  In the end, it was interesting to note the vastly different approaches they each took to solving essentially the same question.  Because of these different approaches, this was also the most difficult section for me to compare

Fizz Weather offered an attractive plugin, which could be customized to show the 4-day, 5-day, or 7-day forecast, or the current conditions (along with an abbreviated forecast).  While there was some customization, there was not an opportunity to skin the plugin or add any additional information.  Still, all of the necessary information was readily available for up to three cities at a time.  One thing which I felt also set Fizz Weather apart was its use of weather alerts.  When there is a weather alert in your area, an icon is displayed on the today screen.  While I thought this alert icon could have been more visible, it was a fantastic tool.  Just tap on the alert icon and you will be taken to the alert information.  I awarded Fizz Weather a point in this category for the ease of use of its today screen plugin.  I also awarded a second point for including the alerts indicator directly on the today screen.

I really liked the default view in Spb Weather, which showed a tab for each day of the week.  The tab displayed a summary of the day’s forecast, with more detailed information appearing upon a tap of the tab.  There were also several other views of varying detail which could be displayed, for up to ten cities at a time.  In addition to changing views, you can also switch to one of several included skins, or create your own skin.  This was an extremely nice customization option, and there are numerous skins available from the Spb Weather site.  One important note, however, these customization skins only allow you to change the icons.   They do not alter the actual layout of the plugin.  Tap anywhere on the display and you will be rewarded with a nice popup dialogue  with an expanded forecast.  I was extremely pleased with Spb’s today screen plugin.  I awarded them a point for the clean and attractive tabbed interface, a point for customization, and a point for the expanded popup display.

At this point, we can almost see a sort of progression developing.  If Fizz Weather offered minimal skinning and customization, and Spb offered partial skinning and customization, SBSH — true to their reputation — must offer almost a blank slate with Pocket Weather.  Unlike the other programs, Pocket Weather is not locked into a particular format with skinnable icons.  Instead, everything in the plugin is up for grabs.  You can make it look and feel however you desire, and display any information you require, including images, maps, radar, moon phases, and more.  A quick glance at the Pocket Weather forums, in fact, reveals an extensive library of available skins, suitable for almost any layout you could desire.  Even without skinning, however, Pocket Weather offers incredible customization, with numerous included layouts and options.  Some of this was a bit complicated to configure, but the payoff was well worth it.   By default, Pocket Weather will even display the current conditions next to the city name.  It was the only one of the three which displayed the current conditions, regardless of the layout you selected.   I awarded Pocket Weather one point for skinnability, one point for customization options, and one point for displaying the current conditions on all views.

Score for this section:

• Fizz Weather = 2
• Spb Weather = 3
• SBSH Pocket Weather = 3

Integration With Other Programs: Just a quick note on integration, because all of the programs seem to integrate relatively seamlessly with other programs by the same developer.  This is fantastic if you only use programs by the same developer, as it really gives the appearance of a unified software suite.  This appearance starts to break down, however, if you want to mix and match programs.

For example, Spb Mobile Shell includes a weather module, which can incorporate Spb Weather.  This is great if you use Spb Weather and don’t mind the Gismeteo service.  If you prefer a different program, however, then Mobile Shell will continue using the Spb weather engine, rather than incorporating the selected weather program.  The same hold true for Pocket Plus (and Mobile Shell’s Weather Tab), which offers a dynamic icon (above) which can display the weather from the feed on top of the tab.  This only works, however, if Spb Weather has been loaded on that tab.  Load a different program and the dynamic icon will show only “N/A”.

Likewise, SBSH PocketBreeze can only display weather data if you have Pocket Weather installed.  I really liked many of the integration features which were built into several different programs, however, I did get frustrated that none of the programs could incorporate weather services from other developers (as a reviewer, I understand that there are significant complications associated with this, however, as a user, I want the freedom to choose which program will work best for me.  No points were awarded in this category, as all three went about as far as they could with this feature.  The limitations all arose from outside the programs and, therefore, it would be unfair to penalize any of these programs for those limitations.

Other Features: Aside from the today screen plugins, these programs really started to show their personalities in the other features which were included.  To access many of these features, you would have to dig deeper into the program than the plugin would typically allow, however, most of them make the journey well worth it.  Oftentimes, it is these features, more than anything else (except forecast accuracy) which result in a decision whether or not to purchase the program.

Fizz Weather took the approach of offering not just the basic weather forecast, but also an assortment of complex and also niche based weather reports.  Many of these reports are targeted at a specific audience or individual, including:

• Airport report (right), which tells you the conditions at the airport at various  times throughout the day.  This is one piece of information which you will surely want to have handy as prepare to travel.

• Ski reports are another useful feature of Fizz Weather.  Well, useful if you are a skier.  Personally, the idea of strapping two greased sticks onto my feet and hurtling off the side of a mountain sounds about as much fun as diving out of a perfectly good airplane.  So, you can imagine that unless the ski report included a hot cocoa report, I did not use them very often.  However, if you are a skiing enthusiast, or planning a ski trip, then you will certainly want to consult this feature before heading off to the cliffs…I mean mountains.
• I already mentioned weather alerts as they appear on your today screen.  I was actually quite surprised that none of the other programs included these alerts.  They provide critical information when there is extreme weather in your area.

Both Fizz and SBSH also offer significant access to downloadable maps, radar images, and other images, in order to help you visualize the weather patterns in your area.

Additionally, SBSH Pocket Weather also offers an iconic representation of the daily moon phases, as well as sunrise and sunset times.  This is awfully handy, especially for those who celebrate holidays based upon this information.

Pocket Weather also offers a full METAR report for your area airports.  METAR data is probably going to be meaningless to many of you, however, it is the primary means by which pilots track the weather.  So, pilots will certainly want to take a closer look at Pocket Weather.

Of course, SBSH also included what I felt as one of the most extraneous features, the earthquake report.  Maybe I would have felt differently if I lived in a high earthquake area, but this report, which marks recent earthquakes on the map, seemed somewhat pointless to me.  It only provides information about the earthquake after the fact, by which time it is already too late to do anything with the data.  I would have much preferred a hurricane tracking map, which could show me the progress of tropical storms and hurricanes as they approach the coast.

Finally, all three programs offer the ability to view a much more detailed forecast.  Spb does this through a popup dialogue from the today screen, while the others provide it as a separate screen within the program.  [Images: Spb Weather upper left, SBSH Pocket Weather upper right, Fizz Weather below.]

As I mentioned, it was extremely interesting to examine which reports and features each developer determined would be useful or not useful to you.  Spb even went so far as to take the opposite approach, determining that everything was extraneous, except the today screen plugin display.  As such, almost no additional information is available which could not be accessed directly from the today screen.

I awarded Fizz Weather 5 points for their impressive array of reports and options.  SBSH offered an equally impressive set of reports (albeit almost completely different ones that Fizz chose).  I gave them 4 points because of their choice of the Earthquake tracker.  I simply did not see a practical need for this information to be included in a weather application, particularly since it could only report recent activity, and not predict (not that anyone can predict) upcoming earthquakes.  I awarded Spb 3 points, based upon their daring decision to include no options beyond the today screen.  By doing so, it was clear that they were targeting a specific type of user, and I had to give them credit for knowing what their target audience wants.

Score for this section:

• Fizz Weather = 5
• Spb Weather = 3
• SBSH Pocket Weather = 4

Conclusion: Before we wrap up our inaugural edition of the Shootout feature, let’s take a look at the final scores.

Fizz Weather: 13

Spb Weather: 11.5

SBSH Pocket Weather: 16

Anytime you start an article like this, you tend to go into it with some preconceived notions.  I certainly had mine, having used all three of these programs fairly extensively in the past.  I have to admit, however, that some of my initial thoughts were soundly shattered very early on in the testing.  In fact, by the end of the article, I had no idea who was going to win until I tallied the final scores.  What I found most surprising were the variances in secondary features and options.  I mean, everyone expects the multi-day forecast, and none of the programs disappointed on that.  Most users know that Spb Weather has had considerable problems with the accuracy of the Gismeteo weather source.  And most of us are aware of SBSH’s blank slate philosophy toward skinning.

What I did not expect to find, however, were ski reports, moon phases, and satellite imagery.  These and other reports and features are what made each of these programs more than just another weather application.  And, of course, Spb stands alone as the choice of the user who just wants a simple weather application.

The dust has settled.  The smoke cleared.  The battle is over.  The outcome:  SBSH Pocket Weather stands alone in the crossroads of the town.  While all of the contenders offered a nice application, Pocket Weather was the only one that offered the complete package.  It was incredibly accurate, fully customizable, and allowed users to determine which information they could access, as well as when, where, and how it would be displayed.  Additionally, the extra features, such as images, maps, and radar; detailed forcast, METAR data for pilots; and more, set it over the top.  Sure, I would have replaced the earthquake report with a hurricane tracker, but that is a pretty small complaint against a mountain of incredibly useful and usable features.  Congratulations to Pocket Weather, the winner of our first My Today Screen Shootout.

Information About The Featured Programs:

Fizz Weather:

• Developer: Fizz Software
• Version: 2.4
• Price: 16.95
• Where To Buy: Fizz Weather

Spb Weather:

• Developer: Spb Software House
• Version: 1.7.4
• Price: $14.95
• Where To Buy: Spb Weather

SBSH Pocket Weather:

• Developer: SBSH
• Version: 2.0.7
• Price: $14.95
• Where To Buy: SBSH Pocket Weather

Tested Device: Sprint Mogul with Windows Mobile 6 Professional

If you would like to suggest a topic for a future Shootout on My Today Screen, or if you are a developer and would like to see your product featured in a future Shootout, please let us know by leaving a comment or completing the contact form.  You can view all of the Shootouts on My Today Screen in our Shootout archives.

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