App Store Favorite: Solar

Solar ($1.99)

iPhone & iPod Touch only | 2.0 MB | 4.5/5 stars

"Solar is an exquisitely designed weather app.

No vector polygons, no dew point calibration and it won't remind you to wear a jacket. Just radiant, colorscapes to accurately help you size up your day."

Solar is a minimalistic weather app that I bought just because of the interesting and very neat design style. The app has a creative display of the weather: temperature on the bottom and weather conditions on the top. Only, they're visualized in colors. When it's really hot, temperature is red. When it's cold, temperature is blue. When it's rainy, drops of water rain down the screen. When it's clear skies, the top is a bright blue. Lightning lights up the screen in flashes of yellow during a thunderstorm.

Navigating future weather conditions is fun. To see a forecast for the next 3 days, just slide down. To jump ahead a few hours, slide up and watch the clock icon spin through time to see upcoming weather conditions.

Solar manages multiple cities in a card-style interface. The cards can be moved around and deleted just like apps on the homescreen. The app gets information from Weather Underground, so there shouldn't be a problem with missing area information.

Aside from the cool and rare design, I bought Solar because I usually consult my iPhone for weather to get a little update on what the conditions are right now. More robust apps like The Weather Channel are good at showing a ton of stats, like pollen or pollution or local tides as well as radar, but most often I just want an update on what the temperature is right now. The stock Weather app works for that, but it's getting old and stale. I wanted something new, something my friends could gawk at, and ask what app I was using. It is my go-to weather app.

App Store Favorite is series of blogs highlighting one of our favorite apps in a little summary, and maybe you'll end up adding it to your list of favorites too.