Skyline brings a minimalist look to your weather and is worth checking out

We were tipped on a relatively new Windows Phone 8 weather app the other day and while we have plenty of weather app options, this one ain't too shabby. Skyline has a minimalist appearance that delivers the basic weather information along with an interesting map feature.
Yes. It is another Windows Phone weather app but Skyline has enough appeal and gusto to stand out from the pack.
Skyline's Layout
I don't know if it could get much simpler with Skyline's layout. When you first launch the app you will need to identify your forecast location (or just tap the target symbol to set it to your current location). Skyline supports global cities, towns and villages with the ability to save up to six favorites.
Once you have entered your forecast city, Skyline will send you to the app's main page. A main page that will display your current conditions that includes:
- Current temperature
- Wind speed and direction
- Rainfall
- Cloud cover
- Visibility
- Barometric Pressure
You'll also have an icon displayed that represents the current weather conditions.
Just below your current conditions, a five day forecast is displayed that will have a general weather forecast and expected high/low temperature. Swiping further down the screen you will find a graph charting the temperature, pressure and precipitation for the next twenty-four hours.
Skyline's main page does lack a refresh button. The page should automatically refresh when the app launches but it would be nice to easily force a refresh of the weather information.
Swiping to the left or right of the main page will send you to the Cities page that will list your forecast cities along with the options to view the map, add a city, launch the quick search feature, toggle between Fahrenheit and Celsius, and view the about/settings pages.
Tapping and holding on a listed city will give you the options to delete the location or set it as your default location. You can switch between forecast cities by side swiping the Cities page and tap the desired location. It would have been nice to have seen the ability to swipe the forecast city name on the main page to change locations but going to the Cities page isn't too inconvenient.
Skyline's settings cover setting your units of measurement and turning on/off the transparent Live Tile, lockscreen support and button color.
Skyline's Live Tile support will display the default city's current conditions and a three day extended forecast on the medium tile. The wide tile will have your current conditions/three day forecast on the front and a 24-hour temperature chart on the back. Lockscreen support tosses up the same information along with wind, rainfall, cloud cover, visibility and barometric pressure readings to your Windows Phone lockscreen.
Map View
The map view with Skyline is a nice feature that provides you with five map overlays that illustrates current weather conditions. The map is touch navigable and an icon button bar sits at the bottom of the map that will let you switch between several current condition views. Map views include cloud cover, temperature, barometric pressure, wind and precipitation. The map is not animated but will give you a feel for the weather conditions in other areas.
Another nice feature of the map is that your forecast cities will be pinned to the map with a flag illustrating the current conditions. You can also tap/hold an area of the map to view the current conditions in that area. A list of the closest cities to your tap will pop-up that you can add a city by tapping the city listing or tap/hold the city listing to add the location to your favorites.
Overall Impression
Skyline is a simple, nicely drawn up weather app for Windows Phone 8 that has enough features to take it just a nudge past the "basic weather" app category. While the weather information displayed for your forecast cities is on the basic side, the map view takes Skyline up a notch by offering a global view of current weather conditions.
While it would be nice to see animated radar and weather alerts added to the mix, as is, Skyline is a Windows Phone 8 weather app worth looking into.
- Skyline - Windows Phone 8 - Free - Store Link
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George is the Reviews Editor at Windows Central, concentrating on Windows 10 PC and Mobile apps. He's been a supporter of the platform since the days of Windows CE and uses his current Windows 10 Mobile phone daily to keep up with life and enjoy a game during down time.
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OFFTOPIC : Please remove Win a Surface Pro 3 from Windows Phone Central!! from first place. Since its pinned there we are not getting notifications for new posts on the WPCentral app for WP.
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Agreed. I have noticed no notifications too.
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Agreed.
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I agree too. I thought no one wrote articles today. The Win a Surface was on top.. until I decided to swipe down. Traffic Racer is free today too.
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Ditto! I was wondering why my live tile was so lifeless...
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Agree
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What they said.
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Does the app have the option of updating to your current location or just the preset cities that you select? Dont understand why all weather apps dont have the current location as an option
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Nope! Amazing Weather HD has that option. You choose "GPS" as your current city and it updates the weather according to the place you are...
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How so? At least Bing Weather suerly has current location as an option and it always worked for me (in Slovakia, Central Europe)
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i still use Prognoza - nice, clean and fast
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It doesn't appear so. Otherwise it's a nice app, but not sure if it will replace Blue Skies just yet.
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Hi everyone! I'm the developer of Skyline. Thank you WPCentral for the article. My API calls have exploded and reached the limit. Sorry if it's crashing all the time but please be patient. I'm working on it.
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I will stay on with wonderful vieather app
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Enough with the weather apps already
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There are obviously so many weather apps but one of the interesting things to me is which service each uses to get the data. For example, Amazing Weather and 4castr (my two go to's right now) both use weather underground but wrapped up in much different GUI's. I'd almost be interested to see of list of all the popular apps and which service they use, and which users find most accurate.
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Nice app, hope he doesn't have to change the name to Oneline. /s
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This app is useless. It couldn't locate me, then it hang and cannot open it at all anymore.
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Hi, I'm sorry for the bugs. I worked on the problems and it is now updated. I hope you'll find it useful.
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Hi. I'm looking for a weather app, which has wide and transparent tile with more data, in example: city, temperature, pressure, weather condition (some graphics will be appreciated). For now, I'm using a Meteo app, which is the most accurate weather app, but it has only normal live tile. Price of app doesn't matter. :)
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Please help me :)
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Did you try Amazing weather HD?
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Yup, but front tile isn't transparent, but I will keep this app, thanks :)
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No problem :) Although I'm pretty sure the front tile is also transparent
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Seems nice, but I'm staying with Blue Skies. Fastest in the market i guess and really clean.
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Don't work on my 920
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Hi, I'm sorry for the bugs. I worked on the problems and it is now updated. I hope it will find its way to your Lumia 920's lockscreen.
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I wonder how many weather apps this author uses lol
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Installed and crashing on my 1020.
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Hi, I'm sorry for the bugs. I worked on the problems and it is now updated. I hope it will find its way to your Lumia 1020's lockscreen. http://www.windowsphone.com/s?appid=a81993c4-4116-43fa-a3f4-6b8a6779e8db
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Umm, I can't get this app on my 8X in the UK why?
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Hi, I'm sorry for the pull. I worked on some problems and it is now updated. I hope it will find its way to your HTC 8X's lockscreen. http://www.windowsphone.com/s?appid=a81993c4-4116-43fa-a3f4-6b8a6779e8db
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Wp is king of weather apps
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Not available on my American 1020 with 8.1. It's a shame, it looks really nice!
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Hi, I pulled it off the store for a brief period to work on some serious issues and it is now updated. I hope it will find its way to your Lumia 1020's lockscreen. http://www.windowsphone.com/s?appid=a81993c4-4116-43fa-a3f4-6b8a6779e8db
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Not offered on market, been pulled
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Hi, I'm sorry for the pull. I worked on some problems and it is now updated. I hope it will find its way to your windows phone homescreen. http://www.windowsphone.com/s?appid=a81993c4-4116-43fa-a3f4-6b8a6779e8db
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Simple but live tile has a grey background. Why not a transparent one?
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Swipe over to Cities then tap the "About" icon in the bottom right corner, then swipe over to Settings. There is an option to enable a transparent live tile. I think it's grey right now because it's overcast where you are? It's raining here and before I set the tile to transparent, it was grey as well.
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No download option in India on Lumia 720 on wp8.0
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Hi, I was working on correcting the bugs. It is now updated. I hope it will find its way to your Lumia 720's homescreen. http://www.windowsphone.com/s?appid=a81993c4-4116-43fa-a3f4-6b8a6779e8db
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Installed it this morning in my Icon, and removed almost inmediatly after it couldn't load location. Three hours later, it has been pulled out the store. Hopefully, the developer is working on fixing it.
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Hi, I'm sorry for the bugs. I worked on the problems and it is now updated. I hope it will find its way to your Lumia Icon's homescreen. http://www.windowsphone.com/s?appid=a81993c4-4116-43fa-a3f4-6b8a6779e8db
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I have skyline for several days now.... no complains... I do like its clean design and its quick when switching to view other cities... (920/8,0 user)