CARROT Weather
And the outlook is: totally essential
CARROT Weather can be bent to your will through its Interface Maker
Free (IAPs) FROM Grailr, meetcarrot.com/weather NEEDS iOS 13 or later
When it comes to mobile weather apps, CARROT Weather has long been the oddball. Forecasts are laced with snark and sarcasm, presented by malevolent artificial intelligence biding its time as a meteorologist before going all Skynet. When it’s about to rain, you’ll see a raindrop symbol and a prediction, but you’ll also be told it ‘sucks to be you’ or sagely advice like: ‘Don’t worry, the rain will wash away the evidence.’
With version 5, though, personality is joined by personalisation – CARROT Weather can be bent to your will through its Interface Maker. You can dive right in, but the app prefers to gradually unlock components, drip-feeding features so it doesn’t overwhelm. When it’s done, you end up with a range of panels to add, edit, and rearrange. Although several varied presets are also provided.
Whichever path you take, you’ll marvel at the possibilities. CARROT Weather can be made to resemble rival apps or the weather app you always wanted. And the smarts continue. One of the new components is a set of cards that contextually surfaces useful data that’s normally buried in other apps. Long-pressing on almost anything provides instant access to details. And quick actions from the tab bar rapidly get you to commonly used features.
Sunshine and services
The other big change is the price: CARROT Weather now starts off free, but can quickly become expensive. If you opt to not pay, all that stuff about customisation goes out of the window – and you also lose iCloud settings sync, Siri shortcuts, maps, sources beyond Foreca, notifications, Apple Watch complications, and even widgets. That’s not to say the free version of CARROT Weather is bad – you still get a compact, usable main view that’s dotted with the aforementioned cards, and the only ad banner you’ll be happy to see in an app. (It either displays a joke or points you at one of the CARROT Weather creator’s favourite indie apps.) But it is basic fare.
Choose to pay and CARROT Weather’s first tier is £4.99 per month – but it’s more palatable if you pay annually (£19.49). There’s also an Ultra tier (double the cost, adding rain/ lightning/storm cell notifications and a few other features) and Family Ultra (£43.99), enabling Ultra use across families.
CARROT Weather’s creator has in the past reminded us that data isn’t free. Apple and other giants eat data costs or flood weather apps with ads. CARROT Weather wants to be better. To that end, Ultra seems a reasonable ask in its annual incarnation – which you’re pushed toward, what with the hefty monthly alternative. And for that you get what’s now the most customisable weather app on iPhone, iPod touch or iPad – and, given its capabilities and feature set, also the best.
Craig Grannell