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!
I just finished hand sifting through thousands of words-to-capitalize by hand that we'll be adding to the government alerts automatically in order to fix the capitalization errors.
These errors occur because we convert from all caps to "Sentence-case", however, that process only capitalizes the first word of each sentence, which ends up making words like "tuesday" and "february" look strange.
Machine Learning is an alternative solution but we're going to give this a shot first and then improve it as we go. :)
Please upgrade to version 512. This version has a fix for the hours issue that some Android users were experiencing. It also fixes radar issues that affected older iOS devices (iOS 12.4).
We are looking forward to rolling out some exciting new features in the coming weeks.
Good morning! So much to talk about! :)
COMPLETED:
- We have finalized changes to our radar loading process to ensure there are no missing or mixing of tiles. Smooth sailing here on in if you have version 1.0.507!
- Coming up in the next version, we've successfully added Apple Maps, on both iOS and Android, as an alternative to Google Maps. This should help users on Android who find the Google Map to be glitchy or on a couple devices, won't load at all.
---------
TO-DO:
- We continue to develop the widget for Apple and Android users and we're so excited to finish an MVP, test it on as many devices as possible, and eventually send it out to all users when it's ready to rock! It will take some time to make all of this happen but we're so very excited to get it launched!
- We're working on adding more notification types to the app. Eg. Rain, S***, Lightning, Winds, etc. Please let us know if there's anything you'd personally want to see as far as notifications are concerned. Customization perhaps? "Only notify me for [3cm] or more [snow] expected between [6 AM] and [9 AM]". :D
---------
UPCOMING ANDROID FIXES (Apple below):
- We're getting much closer to launching a fix for the "Hours" loading bug that some Android users are experiencing since the new app version. For those having this issue, our apologies and please use the "Minutes" product in the meantime until the next update. "Minutes" goes out 6.5 hours or so and has all the same data that "Hours" has except with even more detail (15-min), and a rain/snow animation for intensity.
---------
UPCOMING APPLE FIXES:
- Apple users with older devices running iOS version 12.4 or older are having problems with our radar not loading with version 1.0.507. The map seems to work fine but the loading wheel just spins. Our apologies for this! When Apple upgrades to a new iOS version, they support older devices less and less (as you likely know). This is quite frustrating as we'd like to continue supporting as many older devices as we can. Nevertheless, we'll work hard to support them as long as possible and get this radar issue fixed!
---------
WEBSITE:
Now that we've added Apple Maps, launching the website version shouldn't take much time at all! The website will work in Canada, the US, and worldwide! US alerts will be unavailable until we're finished upgrading our US alert system to be instantaneous. We can't, in our right minds, launch a weather app called Instant Weather in the US with alerts that are delayed. Once that's finished, we'll also launch the app in the US for Apple and Android!
---------
We're so thankful for this wonderful community and thank you for all your support, feedback, and weather reports! <3
Adam
Experimenting with a new widget design. Thoughts?
- Adam
P.S. This is just a photoshop concept I created and I’m not even sure if this is all possible in a widget, yet. Wish our dev team good luck!
Big radar improvement available now with version 507! Available for Apple & Android! Much smoother animations!
Download free at: InstantWeatherApp.com
No more radar mixing and/or back-and-forth animation issues. Woohoo!
- Adam
P.S. If you have an older iPad running iOS 12.4 or older, please hold off on the update until we apply a fix for that, coming soon! (Our apologies if you already did and we’ll have a fix ASAP!)
Report Bar
After testing the Report Bar internally, we've learned a lot and have come up with an interesting concept!
The original idea was to provide an easy tool to quickly report your condition. However, with some brainstorming, we think that once you report a condition from rain to snow, hurricane to tornado, it would be helpful to see if other community members nearby are experiencing the same thing.
Additionally, if you clicked the [Reports] button, it would be really cool to see all of the reports on an interactive map. Eg. Rain, Ice Pellets, Freezing Rain, Blizzard, Fog, Wind Damage, Flooding, etc.
Thoughts?
- Adam
Would you be interested in the development of a "Pro" subscription tier for roughly $8.99 per month?
Features could include:
1. Individual radar stations with longer animations
2. Extended future radar
3. Canadian & US Velocity (wind) radar data to help detect tornadoes and damaging wind gusts
4. Correlation Coefficient radar to recognize debris signatures in violent tornadoes
5. High-resolution satellite animations
Longer-term:
6. Weather models
7. 3D Radar animations
8. New and improved tornado, blizzard, and other severe weather detection algorithms
9. Etc.
The sky's the limit... until we add Mars weather.
P.S. For those wondering, the timing on this would potentially be next year as we have many important free features to add like our Widget, Night-mode, Report Bar, Web-app, Lightning, etc.
Adam
I bet you didn't know that when precipitation is in the forecast on our FREE InstantWeatherApp.com, we add ////// lines to the blue forecast bars?
You can also tap any blue bar to expand the forecast:
- Day and Night Details
- Written Forecasts
- Severity Details
- Jump to Min or Hour
- Sunrise & Sunset Time
Download InstantWeather™ for free by tapping this link on your phone or tablet:
Or click "Use App" at the top of our page and choose Apple or Android.
Thank you so much and please leave a review on the App Store or Google Play Store as those really help!
- Adam
496 is available for both iOS and Android. It should solve an issue that some people experienced with the app crashing.
If you are experiencing any issues with 1.0.496 please fill out the survey on our facebook page.
