Instant Weather App tutorial videos

Welcome to the Instant Weather App tutorial series! You can either delve into the entire tutorial by clicking on the respective headings or swiftly navigate to specific topics using timestamps. Stay tuned as we continue to add to our tutorial library with new videos showcasing exciting features currently in development. Additionally, we'll address any issues by providing troubleshooting guides as we work on resolving these issues.

Overview of the Instant Weather App

Installation

No chapters.

Live Radar

Days, Hours, Minutes

Locations

Report Weather

Menu and Settings

Subscriptions

FAQs and Current Issues

  • 11pm - midnight hourly bug - Facebook (video to come).
    This bug occurs between 11pm and midnight and affects the hourly forecast.
  • Imperial Units Precipitation bug - Facebook (video to come).
    This bug occurs in the Days view when there is both rain and snow in the forecast and imperial units are chosen. The amount of rain can be incorrect in inches (even showing zero). Please use metric until this bug is fixed.

How much snow?

When looking at the current day it never seems to coincide with the alerts for how many cm of snow to expect. Just wondering why that is?

Environment Canada issues alerts and they cover a pretty large area. Therefore, they are more general amounts that folks in your area could see. Our app is forecasting for your exact location and in some cases the app might end up being correct and in other cases, the alert might end up being correct. It’s best to compare between them to see what you might end up with, depending on where the heaviest pockets of snowfall actually fall. It’s also good to compare between these two options and our custom forecast maps as all three are using unique techniques to forecast.

Also our app shows what is to come and not the total for the day. Another important thing to note is that day for the app is sunrise to sunrise. The app is also constantly updating its amounts based on the most recent data and models.

Why we need to charge for radar upgrades

One of our community members brought up the topic of economic discrimination regarding the in-app purchases on our free app and we wanted to share that discussion in case anyone else felt the same way and to bring clarity to their very valid concern. Please be kind with your comments. We want to keep this a safe place for those to share constructive criticism AKA kind-candor.

They commented:

“So charge those who wish to have ads removed, but don’t charge for radar upgrades and 15 minute interval radar reporting, which can save lives. The real story isn’t the potential for ad removal, it’s the buried story of economic discrimination.”

Our response:

“We would love to do that! Seriously, we tried. But once we ran the numbers of how much the additional, extremely expensive future-radar data that we purchase was vs how little revenue the tiny ad banner yielded that we place at the bottom of the app, we ended up losing quite a bit of money for every user. If we ended up launching the app that way, we’d be bankrupt by this point and we wouldn’t be having this discussion.

Currently, users that keep ads actually cost us a little bit each month and that’s with only 2 hours of radar data. It’s only because of those who subscribe that we’re able to afford to pay for those who don’t.

With premium future-radar, we have to pay for every single radar tile and there is multiple tiles per radar and multiple frames per animation. It adds up very quickly, especially with many users on the app. Having said this, we do have plans to build our own future radar product and that will happen within the next two years. Once we do, we’ll be able to offer more to free users!

I really hope you can appreciate that this isn’t economic discrimination. This is simply a very careful pricing strategy so that we don’t go out of business. On a related topic, we offer everything on our Facebook and social media accounts for free and that will never change. We also often share the full 5 hour 15-minute radar animations on our pages for free for everyone to see. So basically, everything we do is ultimately shared with the entire community for free and we plan to keep it that way.

I personally grew up in subsidized housing and we couldn’t afford much. However, I’m so grateful my parents did everything they could to provide us with the best life possible and I wouldn’t change my childhood for anything. I’m certainly not out here trying to economically discriminate against anyone and I certainly haven’t forgotten where I came from. I am also so grateful that we’re able to offer all that we do to everyone for free.

I really do appreciate you taking the time to discuss this and I sincerely hope I’ve shed some light on exactly why we need to charge users that are able to afford to upgrade to get slightly more than what we already offer everyone for free. - Adam”

Upgrade For Storm Season!

Hi! Did you know you can Upgrade Radar & Remove Ads in the menu at the top left of the app for as little as $0.99-per-month or $5.99-per-year?

This upgrade will extend your future radar to 5 hours, which is very helpful as we get into severe weather season! It also removes ads from the app for a pleasant full-screen experience.

And for a little bit more, $12.99-per-year gets you 15-minute intervals on future radar to help you narrow down exactly when those storms will arrive in your area!

Not only do your subscriptions significantly help us offset the cost of expensive weather data, servers, new feature development, and app maintenance, it ensures that even though ad revenue continues to get lower and lower each month, we will be able to continue providing the Instant Weather app and all of our many services for years to come!

Thank you so much for your consideration! And if you’ve already subscribed, thank you, thank you, thank you for making this app possible! Without your subscriptions, this app would unfortunately go bye-bye very quickly. Long story slightly longer, thank you for subscribing and also for renewing your subscriptions each month and/or each year!

Sincerely,

- Adam, Teresa & The IW Team

P.S. Did I mention; thank you?! Just in case I didn’t, thank you!!!

Thank You to Those That Have Subscribed

Just wanted to give a huge thank you and virtual hug to all those who have subscribed to Upgrade Radar & Remove Ads!

Your subscriptions are the reason we’re able to offer the app for free to everyone else! The small ad banner at the bottom of the app helps a bit but it definitely does not pay for the premium weather data we purchase, expensive servers, constant development, and constant upgrading.

We realize not everyone can afford to subscribe and we completely understand! This is why we made the app free and thank you so much for using the app and telling your friends and family about it! Virtual hugs for you too!

Either way, your support means the world to us and allows us to continue raising awareness about tornadoes and severe weather .

And for that, thank you, thank you, thank you

- Adam

Version 610 is Live for Android

Version 610 on Android has been submitted for review with the Google Play Store and this brings with it a fix for the notification issues on certain Android devices!

Google has mentioned it may take longer than usual this time of year to get approval so please bear with us. Thank you for your patience!

610 also brings a fix for links in the alert dropdown that go to a browser that can’t be closed. Instead, it’ll open in your default browser.

Apple will also take a while for approval and we’ll get them both out ASAP!

Thank you and Merry Christmas!

Version 609 Live!

ANDROID USERS: Version 609 should be live now: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details...

APPLE USERS: Version 609 launched earlier this month:

https://apps.apple.com/ca/app/instant-weather/id1495672013

NEW:

- Coloured icons! (Switch back to 1 colour in settings)

- All locations on "Locations" page auto-update condition details!

- Animation on top of "Hours" product

- Snow animation option available in settings (Avoid if your device isn't very fast)

- "Allow Notifications" permission will pop-up immediately for users who have location Services disabled & not just the second time they open the app

- Fix for duplicate "Following" locations

- Other minor bug & performance fixes!

Thank you!! Woohoo!

- Adam, Teresa, & our dev team!

Version 609 Available for Apple Users and Android Beta

IMG_6606.jpeg

APPLE USERS: Version 609 is available now on the App Store!

https://apps.apple.com/ca/app/instant-weather/id1495672013

ANDROID USERS: 609 coming to beta soon and it'll be released after a bit more testing!

NEW:

- Coloured icons! (Switch back to 1 colour in settings)

- All locations on "Locations" page auto-update condition details!

- Animation on top of "Hours" product

- Snow animation option available in settings (Avoid if your device isn't very fast)

- "Allow Notifications" permission will pop-up immediately for users who have location Services disabled & not just the second time they open the app

- Fix for duplicate "Following" locations

- Other minor bug & performance fixes!

Thank you!! Woohoo!

- Adam & Teresa

AlertReady and the App

For those wondering, we haven’t added AlertReady to the app, yet. However, this is definitely something we plan on adding!

Once we do add it, all of those non-weather government alerts will be available as an option in the settings.

We hope this makes sense and we’ll certainly get to it as soon as we can! In the meantime, we’ll post any Amber Alerts we can by hand and if you see anything else important, please let us know and we’ll try to get it out ASAP!

Thank you!