Carrot Weather
Puts charmless meteorologists and weather apps to shame
Weather apps are generally functional. You peer at symbols and predictions, and perhaps watch the odd video of someone pointing at maps, but there’s rarely any fun. Meteorologists can’t even bring themselves to wear amusing hats. Carrot Weather has a markedly alternative approach, infusing humour and entertainment into forecasting, largely through having predictions provided by a hostile artificial intelligence that probably has Skynet on speed-dial.
After cheerily stating “Greetings, meatbag”, noting adverse weather post-activation is “coincidental”, and warning you not to poke its ocular sensor, Carrot begins forecasting. You can switch between short-term, hourly and daily forecasts, each with rainfall and temperature predictions. There’s also a time machine feature for ruing that it was warmer this time last year (then finding it wasn’t).
Mostly, though, Carrot is about snark. The AI is amusingly hostile, laughing at you when it’s raining, sending hurricanes when you poke its ocular sensor one too many times, and illustrating the weather with oddball illustrations, such as a sad person sitting in a bath when it’s grey and rainy. Naturally, the app’s a luxury – perhaps an extravagance. You can get similar information for free via forecast.io. But we’re glad it exists anyway – at least, assuming Carrot doesn’t use its time machine to find John Connor. Craig Grannell