What's so special with minimalweather.com? • Hacker News Board

Re: What's so special with minimalweather.com?

#11

Post by ndespres » Wed, Jul 25, 2012, 4:23 PM UTC

shawabawa3 wrote: post #2

So the icon shows what the weather was the previous time you ran it? Maybe I'm misunderstanding it but it seems like an anti-feature to me.

Yes. I already have a weather icon on my iPhone that doesn't show the actual weather until I open it. Right now it tells me it's 73 and sunny!

Re: What's so special with minimalweather.com?

#12

Post by elcuervo » Wed, Jul 25, 2012, 4:25 PM UTC

Lexarius wrote: post #10

For some reason I'm really bothered by the fact that it's locked to Fahrenheit if you're in the US. At least give me a query parameter or something.

That's fair. I didn't figured out a way to keep a clean UI and switch unit. Will add a query param and think something for the interface. Thank you for the feedback.

Re: What's so special with minimalweather.com?

#13

Post by gamache » Wed, Jul 25, 2012, 4:26 PM UTC

Weather Live has been doing this for quite some time; I wouldn't call this "so special".

It's not an enviable feature. Right now I am in San Jose and I can see what the temperature was in Boston last time I launched the app.

Re: What's so special with minimalweather.com?

#14

Post by zzzmarcus » Wed, Jul 25, 2012, 4:27 PM UTC

shawabawa3 wrote: post #2

So the icon shows what the weather was the previous time you ran it? Maybe I'm misunderstanding it but it seems like an anti-feature to me.

There's an app that'll show you the temperature in realtime on the icon without the need to open the app. It's called eWeather HD and uses the notifications feature of iOS in a pretty clever way. The app itself is a little obtuse, but having the temperature right there has made it worthwhile to me.

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/eweather-hd-weather-forecast/...

Re: What's so special with minimalweather.com?

#15

Post by jklein24 » Wed, Jul 25, 2012, 4:28 PM UTC

Very cool that you got this to work in iOS, but you know what else is special? Android widgets.

Re: What's so special with minimalweather.com?

#16

Post by koeselitz » Wed, Jul 25, 2012, 4:29 PM UTC

corin_ wrote: post #8

elcuervo wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every time you enter the app the icon reflects the weather. The idea behind the site itself it's to show how to 'hack' the icon to reflect stuff.

It's not really hacking the icon, even in inverted commas - it's simply using the feature that allows you to specify the icon.

The thing is that Apple has not so far allowed really and truly dynamic icons on the home screen. This bothers some of us, since we'd like to have some notifications or displays visible from that screen. This is neat because it allows that, although in a limited way.

Re: What's so special with minimalweather.com?

#17

Post by booticon » Wed, Jul 25, 2012, 4:32 PM UTC

shawabawa3 wrote: post #2

So the icon shows what the weather was the previous time you ran it? Maybe I'm misunderstanding it but it seems like an anti-feature to me.

My understanding of it is that they're working within the constraints of WebKit in iOS. Developers aren't able to update the icon in realtime, but if you have a homescreen webapp it can update the icon each time you launch it. This is a nice workaround, since I used to launch my homescreen weather app every ten minutes, and chances are the temperature hasn't changed much since the last time I checked. I say "used to" because I use the Weather widget in Notification Center.

Re: What's so special with minimalweather.com?

#18

Post by at-fates-hands » Wed, Jul 25, 2012, 4:39 PM UTC

the live tiles on my windows 7 phone does this actually for several apps (shows up to date info), including my weather app.

Re: What's so special with minimalweather.com?

#19

Post by mgurlitz » Wed, Jul 25, 2012, 4:40 PM UTC

pavel_lishin wrote: post #7

fcoury wrote: post #5

If you're using Chrome, the Currently extension is a must: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/ojhmphdkpgbibohbnp... When you open a new tab, it'll show you current time and weather forecast: http://f.cl.ly/items/1X373t2P143f0j1I3a3R/Screen%20Shot%2020... Nice typography, choose from 3 color schemes and whatnot.

I prefer More Interestingness* - I have a clock on my machine already, and I rarely need to know the weather every time I load a new tab. https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/ngddmdmkjnnefgggjn...

That link goes to Currently still. Here's More Interestingness: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/ngddmdmkjnnefgggjn...

Re: What's so special with minimalweather.com?

#20

Post by rpicard » Wed, Jul 25, 2012, 4:42 PM UTC

elcuervo wrote: post #12

Lexarius wrote: post #10

For some reason I'm really bothered by the fact that it's locked to Fahrenheit if you're in the US. At least give me a query parameter or something.

That's fair. I didn't figured out a way to keep a clean UI and switch unit. Will add a query param and think something for the interface. Thank you for the feedback.

On the other side of that, I'm in the U.S. but I use a VPN in Sweden so I can only see it in Celsius.

It might be cool if you could click the text, "20 ºC," to switch between the two.