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Clima app review

Clima Review: clean and clear forecast from iOS weather app

Get all the important weather information at a glance – that’s the promise of Clima

Price: $0.99/£0.69
Size: 4.3 MB
Version: 1.1
Developer: LittleBigCode

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If you search through the App Store for a replacement weather app, you’ll be amazed at the amount that are available. Many people are unsatisfied with the default Weather app so the App Store is a perfectly logical place to look. However, with the amount of choice on offer it can be a futile exercise. Clima is another contender but one that looks to strip the forecast down to its basics.

Using your current location as a base it shows just the current temperature on a color-coded background. The look is reminiscent of productivity app Clear, and it has taken other cues from that app: to reveal more information you slide to the left or right on the temperature – a swipe to the left shows the hourly forecast, a swipe in the opposite direction shows a daily forecast.

The temperature is clearly shown on the main screen

The temperature is clearly shown on the main screen

There are lots of neat little interface tricks all over the app, but without any obvious hints to their location you may forget how to find certain sections. At first the app guides your through all the swipes but after this, the hints are gone forever. To add other locations you have to pull down from the top of the screen, while dragging up from the bottom opens up the notifications options.

Rain check

...and they'll handily appear on the lock screen

…and they’ll handily appear on the lock screen

These notification options are truly handy and allow the app to notify you based on certain weather conditions, comprising Rain, Snow, Windy, and Temp Change.

Tapping on any option allows you to select a section of the day you want to be alerted, such as 6:00-12:00, and for which location. These come in handy when you get up in the morning, for example, and want to know if it’s likely to rain on your way to work without having to open the app. However, as mentioned earlier, these are slightly hidden beneath Clima’s reliance on swipe gestures.

Looks like rain for this week

Looks like rain for this week

Clima is good to look at, but we feel it has tried to ape the look of Clear too closely; it feels like a carbon copy for forecasts instead of to-do lists. The accuracy of the weather data, as always, is also hard to judge.

Looking at several apps in comparison, it seems that Clima was always slightly different. The app relies on data from Forecast.io, an online forecaster that uses data from 19 different sources. So the accuracy may depend on where you’re based and availability of sources it can pull from. Clima is a good attempt at being slightly different by just focusing on the important information. However, it hides a lot of other useful data behind easily forgettable swipe gestures. If you’re after something basic then Clima is a good option but those searching for something more detailed should look elsewhere.

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