Never having had a dedicated weather application before I was really happy to take a look at PocketWeather 2.0, a new upgrade from SBSH software. So I downloaded the cab and installed to SD card. During installation PocketWeather offered me the chance to uninstall language support for all other languages except my own, reducing the size of the installation, Nice touch! I was welcomed by a nice today plug-in and registration was simple, enter username and registration key and you’re up and running. When I started playing with it, it was almost overwhelming. I didn’t expect such a comprehensive program, that was infinitely customisable, or so it seems. Before I even start, there was one initial problem I had, a reference to data that I was unfamiliar with, METAR. What is that? 

The word METAR originated from the French, “message d’observation météorologique régulière pour l’aviation,” and is thought to be a contraction from the french words, MÉTéorologique (”Weather”) Aviation Régulière (”Routine”). The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) defines a METAR as an aviation routine weather report in the Aeronautical Informational Manual and may therefore consider it erroneous to attempt to redefine METAR with incorrect terminology such as METeorological Aerodrome Report. The FAA and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) specifically define a METAR as an aviation routine weather report, which is an approximate translation of the historical French description.

In the simplest of terms, PocketWeather 2.0 takes this raw data, which is a series of number and letter codes that coincide with airports all over the world and translates it, into something you can observe on your device. That in itself is a pretty big programming achievement, and well beyond this simpletons comprehension. Give me a program though and I can dissect it pretty quickly. Then PocketWeather came along and I’m still finding new things after a couple of weeks! So let’s have a look.

I won’t try to detail every single feature of PocketWeather, as I think it would dwarf Tolstoy’s War and Peace, mainly I’ll talk about what are for me the highlights of the program.

So let’s have a look at the today screen, quite a simple task you might think, well guess again. If you’re anything like me, when you get a new application you learn to use it through trial and error, only resorting to the manual when really stumped. Most good programs are able to be approached like that.

When first installed we come to the classic today plug-in, which shows by default, medium icons, temperature information and the main menu button (top left), a nice simple layout that is easy to read and self explanatory. Tap the main menu button, or tap and hold anywhere within the today plug-in will bring up the main menu, displaying, About, version info of PocketWeather and registration, where of course you input your username and registration key.

Options which is all of your underlying configuration settings for the program, which I will go into in greater depth about later on.

Online allows direct access to resources to help you with PocketWeather configuration and surprisingly satellite information.

Locations which allows you to cycle through the different locations you have on the today screen, with an option to have the tabs rotate automatically.

Updates which starts to get rather complicated, but as you can see from the  screenshot, you can do all of your update configuration without leaving the today screen.

At this point I would like to note that whilst you have the option to update through your devices gprs/data connection, you may not have an unlimited download data plan, as I do, and to save money you can configure to only update when connected via USB. Even though this allows you to update less often, the variance of weather forecasts in say a twenty four hour period, does not really necessitate updating the weather data on an hourly basis. As you can see below, the figure for total download is quite high, and another good reason to install to memory card and not directly on the device if you are able. 

Now for the pretty bit, Today, the options here are huge, as far as the different layouts for the today screen. All of the different layouts are accessible through the dropdown menu, with options for tabbed and non tabbed layouts, with a few standardised options, which are the main menu button, to include image icons, show wind direction arrow and the last time the weather data was refreshed. there are so many layout options, it makes more sense to pictorially explain them, than to try and put it into words. Although I wont picture every option, I’ll include quite a few.

  As you can see, you can customise the today screen look without much trouble, as all of these styles are pre-configured, just open the menu and choose from one of the twenty five options. There is also a moon phase today screen, and the ability to have the actual weather console, summarised or detailed, also. Although the amount of today screen real estate they take up would probably not be to most peoples liking.(see below). These are all standardised today screen layouts, that SBSH have included in what is the basic installation of PocketWeather. You can even design your own layouts if you are so inclined, by writing your own source code, but having had a look at the syntax manual, it is not something I’ll be trying soon. It is accessible though, and that will make a lot of people happy, as they spend many hours tweaking their today layouts. SBSH has really done a thorough job of thinking of everything a user may want to do from the today screen and included it via the today menu system.

Now the weather console itself, which is really the meat that accompanies all those today screen potatoes. It can be accessed through the start menu/programs route, or by single tapping the today screen plug-in. The same amount of detail afforded the today screen has also gone into the console, with plenty of navigation options available, at first though I didn’t realise why. Then it dawned on me, whilst looking in the options for the weather console, PocketWeather has been designed to work with touch screen,non touch screen PDA’s and Smartphone’s and whatever combination of input methods they might combine. Therefore support for phone keypad, full qwerty and touchscreen navigation was required all in the one package, and when these three are combined, you have a mind boggling amount of options. The weather console includes 7 different views, compact,METAR, forecast, image, compare, image library and earthquakes. Again each console page has it’s own menu for that feature! Compact is a very simple weather view for the selected location. Forecast is a much more detailed weather view that gives you in my case a ten day forecast in advance. Not only does it give you advance weather, there is the sun and moon cycles, and you can even break it down to an hourly forecast. METAR is fascinating, the data is collected from different locations, airports and shown to you in relation to your home position superimposed over downloaded satellite images. Once again the view options here are incredible allowing you to see as much or as little of the information from the METAR stations as you like. The compare view is exactly what it says it allows you to see all of your selected locations in a list one above the other so that you can compare them. There’s a really neat feature in images that obviously, is not available for me in Australia, but I have London set as one of my locations. With the Australian images they are straight satellite images, of the continent, the London images include CCTV images from London, Hyde park corner to be exact. captured at regular intervals during the day which can be played like stop frame animation. It gives you a visual indication of the weather conditions over the last hours, how cool is that. Now earthquake information was not something that I expected in a weather program, and was surprised to find it included at all.  PocketWeather shapes up more as an important scientific tool rather than a simple utility.

I’m really blown away with PocketWeather, right out of the box I have done very little to configure it, except add a couple of locations and change the units of measurement and I was up and running, with more features than I ever expected and plenty more to find I’m sure. I wouldn’t fault it in any way, but it does involve a really steep learning curve to get the best out of it. Like I mentioned it seems to be tailored for more significant use than a simple today screen plug-in. The detail that SBSH have focused on, is extraordinary to say the least, and for the price you really get your moneys worth. I’d highly recommend looking at PocketWeather if your in the market for a new weather program, I think you’ll be nicely surprised.

PocketWeather is Compatible with: Pocket PC 2003, Windows Mobile 5 and the latest new Windows Mobile 6 Professional/Classic operating systems.
PocketWeather 2.0 retails for US$ 14.99.
PocketWeather registered users are entitled to upgrade to the new PocketWeather 2.0 for a special price of $4.95.
You can download a trial or the full version of PocketWeather 2.0 from the JAMM Store

Or Pick it up directly from SBSH software

Technorati tags: SBSH Software, PocketWeather, 2.0, windows mobile software, reviews, jamm, justanothermobilemonday

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