Stunning Weather Flow gets updated for Win Phone 8 and brings lockscreen goodness

By Daniel Rubino
last updated

Oh we’re in it now. Some of our long time favorite apps are now getting bumped for Windows Phone 8 and we’re really excited about it. Weather Flow, made by Gergely Orosz (who’s also behind such the amazing Cocktail Flow and AppFlow) just hit the version 1.3 marker and it’s primed for the new OS.

The new update, weighing in at a sprightly 9MB, has newly updated graphics, fixed Live Tiles, lockscreen wallpaper and a few other goodies on board. Check our video hands on and see what we think.

The biggest feature we think and for which many of you have been asking is dynamic lockscreen wallpaper. It’s here and it’s done very well. Once enabled, the lockscreen will immediately update with the image of the current conditions. In addition, your location, current temperature, percent chance of rain and even last update are displayed.

We have to give credit here to Gergely as the layout from a usability standpoint is perfect. By that we man your eyes instinctively know where to look for the pertinent information (HTC’s solution, while nice, in our view buries the info too much near the Time/date).

But wait, there’s more! (Channeling our inner Billy Mays). You actually have not one but three options for the lockscreen wallpaper. You can have current conditions, hourly or the weekly forecast displayed—whichever you prefer.

Likewise for the new Live Tiles, which come in the non-distracting Metro look or the more HD “photo realistic” design. With version 1.3 you now get the double wide Tile (though it doesn’t flip), medium and small tiles. Any of those can be selected to show current forecast, hourly or weekly.

That’s a pretty awesome choice because you can mix and match things, should you choose to fully embrace the full weather experience. For instance, on our lockscreen we’re showing current conditions but on our doublewide tile, we opted for the weekly forecast. Result? We instantly know the weather conditions now without even unlocking the device and we know the week’s forecast without even launching the app. How’s that for efficiency?

Anyway, watch our hands on video and if you’re enthralled with the prospect of Weather Flow version 1.3, you can go and download it here in the Store. It fetches for $1.99 with a free trial. Thanks, Chris and Kyle, for the tip!

Windows Phone 8 devices only!

Daniel Rubino
Daniel Rubino
Editor-in-chief

Daniel Rubino is the Editor-in-chief of Windows Central, head reviewer, podcast co-host, and analyst. He has been covering Microsoft since 2007 when this site was called WMExperts (and later Windows Phone Central). His interests include Windows, laptops, next-gen computing, and for some reason, watches. Before all this tech stuff, he worked on a Ph.D. in linguistics, watched people sleep (for medical purposes!), and ran the projectors at movie theaters because it was fun.

117 Comments
  • Lets see the iPhone try to do this
  • Probably charge an extra 30% to use the lock screen....
  • +1 probably charge too just to use your phone.
  • They might go for 90% after they patent it and call it their creation. Great App though.
  • Lmao...that was a good one
  • To be fair my jailbroken iPhone can do something like this. That said in downloading this app asap.
  • Amazing weather HD, your turn.
  • Ugh... I hate that I just bough weather HD!!! lol... O well, only 2 bucks, both very good apps.
  • I thought the exact same thing!  I think the lock screen feature is what will cost me another 2 bucks....
  • I still prefer Amazing Weather... Radar and Satellite maps, but I love Weather Flow's new design and performance. I may use both. :)
  • Yes, AmazingWeather could also do something similar :D
  • Great app, I bought it a couple of months ago.
    Too bad they didn't add fast resume, and that the double-wide tile doesn't flip, though...
  • Agreed about the double wide. It's interesting that the medium size will flip to show the forecast, but the double wide won't. Lock screen is fantastic though.
  • The double wide tile doesn't need to flip
  • You think so, but I don't.
    And since this app has a lot of customization, it'd have been great to add the ability to set the double tile to flip, so that it could show, for ex., the hourly forecast in the front, and the daily forecast in the back :)
    THAT would definitely be awesome! :D
  • Ah, I see what you mean. I understand. :)
  • I think the wide tile looks a little busy with the forecast on it. I would like the ability to show the forecast on the back of the tile. Still, small criticism for a fantastic app.
  • My solution - Use the lockscreen with the hourly forecast and the large tile with the weekly.  I get all my weather needs within a push of the powerbutton and a quick swipe up.
  • Agreed on fast resume. Every WP8 app needs to adopt this.
    I'm still not entirely sure why MS didn't just make this the default behavior.
  • I agree...please add flip to live tile!
  • THIS.  Nice app, well done dev.
     
    I'll stick with Amazing Weather for now though, I likes the movements on mah homescreens (double wide) :)  Bring on the lockscreen though, AW dev!
  • I love this app. Bought it last week. Don't like the small live tile doesn't show a weather icon anymore. :(
  • Grr just bought amazing..
    gonna have to hold out on this. But this is exactly what I would love
  • Wait, the small tile flips?
  • I wish.
  • Well Daniel wrote that.
  • Never seen that before. I doubt it. I guess its not allowed, would be kind of chaos with all small tiles and all of them flipping.
  • Probably my favorite app ever, I bought it a few months ago and haven't used it since it got the 8x because I couldn't stand the letter boxing. Looks amazing now though. I wish all apps were this well made.
  • Lock screen looks very WMish
  • Funny you say that because my trophy broke last week and I used my HTC touch pro 2 for about 10 days and a number of times I thought... You know what, not THAT much has changed. Clearly chipsets have improved speed and touch accuracy, but the heart of WM is still in WP. Esp if you used HTCs touch wiz. I realize ppl will prob think WTF am I saying but I'm purely speaking about the essence of it.
  • I mean HTC sense? Samsung has touchwiz.
  • I've been thinking the same thing since they started showing off WP7. The OS was rewritten from the ground up but many of the ideas that they had in WM 6.5 have continued to live on. To me, that's a good thing because they'd done a lot of good stuff in Windows Mobile.
  • I think this just became my favorite weather app
  • anyone know the weather source?
    the forecast seem to be way off compared to weatherbug and weather channel.
  • Same here, weather is way off compared to any other app. Very nice app though but not much use if it is not accurate.
  • Weather Underground I believe. I really want to like them and in the one scientificish study I've seen they rated pretty good on their predictions but their temps seem off.
  • Agreed. The temperature is way off compared to National Weather Service, local weather, Weather Channel and Accuweather.
  • Wow. Just wow. Gergely has really outdone himself with this app. I absolutely love the double wide tile options, quality of the images, and all of the options for the lock screen.
  • What I wonder is why it updates more often than I have it set at. In settings I have it to update every 3 hrs, but the live tile and now the lockscreen always have updated times pretty much everytime I unlock my phone at intervals as small as every 10 minutes.
  • Just installed the trial. It looks amazing and I'm seriously considering buying it. However, I feel like I'll have to keep the Weather Channel app around for radar, "feels like", and a few other things. I wish WeatherFlow had it all so I could get rid of the others. I really liked Amazing Weather, too, but I wanted a double wide rich tile with forecast on the back - it was missing one option. And of course it doesn't have this awesome lock screen functionality.
  • What I do is have Weather Flow for the Live Tile and have The Weather Channel as a small tile to go to when I want detailed info. Sometimes it changes between apps, but I always have one for tile and one for detailed info. It usually stays Weather Flow and Weather Channel, though.
  • Yeah, that's probably what I'll do, I just wish I could do it all with one app. I've been hanging on to the TWC app until I found a decent one.
  • Bought the amazing weather last week. Hopefully they do something like this
  • I almost bought Amazing Weather HD, but I already had Weather Flow, even if it did look ugly because it was low resolution, so I just did a trial. Glad I waited.
  • I liked Weather Flow, but I always had inacccurate results for my area, and the app was (previously) much slower than Amazing Weather. Seems like the new version has improved on that, I love the new design, and it's great to see the two apps go head-to-head on great designs that really show off what WP is capable of doing. That said, I'll be sticking with Amazing Weather because of the satellite and radar maps.
  • Medium tile has way to much info. Graphics still seem lower resolution then amazing weather also. I like the lock screen though.
  • Nice looking app but no radar or satellite images.
  • Impressive app, i had being going with the clean and simple microsoft weather app.  I didnt like accuweather or the other ones due to too much going on. 
    But the lock screen and the tile options are great with this, i may buy this after trying it out. 
  • Wow. Amazing update to a great app. Lock screen and live tiles are great, but I like the forecasting in Amazing Weather better (sometimes I like to read). I'll probably just keep both around.
  • Agreed. The forecasting in amazing weather is a must have... Just need a rich wide tile in AW, with a forecast...
  • So beautiful! Amazing use of Metro with richness. Developers should take note.
  • I love ?u lumia 920. I went to Starbucks today and gotten some people asking me your phone is very nice hahahah they just love Clear HD screen of the phone. They tell me there bored of there iphone 5 icons hahahaha too bad...
  • LOL that's cool, man.
  • Finally!!! This app is Awesome!!!
  • This app makes the weather channel app look like garbage. Kudos to the dev and once again to WPC. This will be at least 3rd app I've purchased because of seeing/hearing about them here. Now, off to check out the dev's other apps ;)
  • Just DL'd, the lock screen is gorgeous. Great job by the developers taking full advantage of WP8
  • Nice app, wish it worked with high contrast mode. Or anything with the lock screen for that matter in high contrast.  That should be an update in portico haha.
  • You just answered my question. The high contrast setting is my preferred viewing mode. Too bad.
  • Bought it, love it. Well worth the cash.
  • Man I wish I had more screens. I've changed my locks screen app 3 times today and can't make up mind to which one I want to keep
  • Best weather app
  • Great update! Glad to see this app updated. I purchased this on my old phone replacing weatherbug v2 as my weather app. Speaking of which, I think they still have both versions of weatherbug in the store..
  • Not a big fan. Its a well done app but the lack of radar is a deal breaker for me. Has anyone heard about an update for Weather Live? That's the one I bought for my WP7 and of course would be the last to update.
  • I'm about to purchase this app right now
  • Not so good for Australia. Looks pretty though, but accurate weather info and radar is needed.
  • This is amazing... I loved Weather Flow already, but the fact that I can now put the weather (plus forecast for either day or week) on the start screen WITH a picture of my choice...These guys thought it out, superb!
  • I'm trying to decode between this and Amazing Weather HD. Anyone have any opinions as to which is better (disregarding price)?
  • I'm using Amazing weather HD, and really loving it. This one looks promising too, but my only complain that it's a bit slow on the refresh. Not sure why. I'm sticking with AW for now.
  • Same here im using Amazing weather HD love the apps...im also trying out the Weather Flow its good too
     
  • best weather app on windows phone
  • I'm using the wide tile with 5 days forecast. Funny thing is all the days show up as mon, mon, mon, mon, and mon. Is it a glitch? A bug?
  • Already bought 3 weather apps, enough is enough but this one is really good...
  • Wow! If developers really take advantage of what WP8 has to offer this by far the best OS available. And when we get the "missing apps"(Ex. Instagram) that Android and iOS users complain about WP8 is really going to take off.
  • So, so good.
  • Great looking app, but my location... well, it's NOT my location, far off (and yes, gps is on)
  • Hi all, the update is amazing and we love competition, though AmazingWeather has full HD video animations not just static images and its hard to compare both apps as Amazing Weather is more focused on details, also a new update in the works to mix and match live tiles and to add lock screen feature ... so long live WP. :)
  • Sounds great but where does AmazingWeather pull it's data from?  Some providers are better (more accurate) than others and a great app isn't great without great data. 
  • ANswered my question.  Data is from Weather Underground and alerts are from the National Weather Service (US).
  • Where does the Weather Flow app pull it's weather data from?
  • Amazing Weather pulls data from Weather Underground.
  • Thanks I should have looked before I asked.    Weather Flow doesn't list that info though.
  • would be nice if you could see the same animations when used as lock screen.
  • Ahh that is not avaialbe by WP8 only static image can be set, and also you will kill your battery by doing so!!
  • Great!  But I've noticed 2 problems so far. 
     
    1 - The weather information (text) on the lockscreen are not in HD; I can tell cause they aren't sharp.
     
    2-  The double wide tile for the 5 day forcast with the rich theme shows "Monday" for all 5 days. 
     
    I'm using the trial right now but I'll buy it the moment those 2 problems are fixed.
  • I noticed the low res on lockscreen too.
    5 day forcast on wide tile shows all days for me.
  • Can't wait to try it
  • Sweet app! I like the lockscreen info, but i'd like to be able to hide it unless called upon. With a swipe if possible.
  • Anyone know how accurate this is for Australia, Melbourne imparticular?
  • I bought Amazing two days ago, but i had this one for months before ^^. The option to have the weather info PLUS bing as a lockscreen is a must have, really a good thinking!
  • Its great but the lockscreen weather-info does not appear to be high res? Looks a bit fuzzy on my 920.
  • App is awful. Lockscreen and live tile are amazing.
    The app has always been one of the more useless and slowest weather apps in the marketplace. But Gergely knows design...all his apps have stunning visuals and they are second bar none in aesthetics. I really appreciate how much time they put into making an app breath-taking. But the app has no features whatsoever in regard to weather, switching between cities is a real pain and its the slowest weather app on my L920.
  • We can all agree on one thing. Way too many good weather apps on WP :p 
  • I use The Weather Channel app.
  • I really like these stunning looking weather apps, but their accuracy seems to leave a lot to be desired
    Its installed and has 3 days to prove itself...........
  • I there some sort of combination to get this to work on the locksxreen consistently? At 1st run it was displaying in my lock screen just fine. Then I changed the wallpaper in the photos hub and I can't get the weather back. Even if I change the wallpaper in the app settings.
  • This is absolutely the best weather app I've used on any device, period. Seeing these new Win Pho 8 features today actually made me a little too excited than I'd care to admit in polite company. Gergely is a genius of design and usability, and everyone needs to purchase this app to reward him effectively.
  • Nothing beats Weather Master in Sweden. Highly accurate and support for Swedish. I hope they make something similar for the lockscreen.
  • Loving it - one question though: I'd like to use the lockscreen forcast together with my plain vanilla solid accent colour background. Problem is however, that I cannot select the default lockscreen wallpapers if I click on use "custom image".
    Any idea if they are accessible from somewhere or if the RGB values can be found someplace so I can create my own?
    Cheers, E
  • Just go into your lock screen settings, select image, navigate to the backgrounds folder and select the colour you want - then take a screen shot and crop the image with one of the many editors available.
  • Cheers mate, totally forgot about the screenshot feature...
  • Purchased this app but only issue I'm having is both the Lock Screen and Live Tile (Forecast) Shows a Row of Mondays instead of a weekly udpate. Restarting did not help. It displays correctly in the App just not on the home screen or lock screen
  • Mine was doing that yesterday as soon as I got the app, but when I woke up today it was back to normal. Maybe just give it a day.
  • The app is nice overall, but why the heck do so many of these great apps use the Weather Underground data. That data is mostly a joke. There is no quality control. Anyone can set up a home weather station and connect it to the Wunderground network. The could place the sensors in their bathroom or in plain sunlight. Overall the temps are somewhat accurate, but I dont trust them more than +/- 10 degrees either way. I would much more prefer the local airport that is 30 miles away. At least that will be accurate.
     
    I dont know why developers always go that route. Wunderground data must just be easily accessable and to implement. Developers probably think it is better to use your location and have the closest site to you for your weather.
     
    Another gripe I have is the forecasts change wildly all to often. I do not use Wunderground for forecasts, but maybe they are getting those from there as well. The forecasts are almost always complete garbage as well.
  • Case and point: It is 12:41pm in Boulder, CO right now and my lockscreen says it is 64 degrees from Weather Flow.
     
    In reality it is not that warm at all. From a reliable weather station on the campus of a univeristy nearby, it is 56 degrees. And from the airport 5 miles away, it is 54. So Weather Flow which used WU data is off by 8-10 degrees. It would be good if this was rare, but is it not. It is common place. Especially on sunny days in the afternoon.
     
    The Wunderground homemade stations are just not ventilated well enough and get too hot during the day.
     
    And it is shame they use that data. Most people dont really pay attention to temperature and what it should be and how it feels to your skin. But I do and this app is garbage (I am an atmospheric scientist for the US Government).
  • Really nice app. Quit finding better weather apps right after I purchase your last review. :P
  • Amazing Weather is currently implement a lock screen feature as well. I would hold out if you can bare it. The feature you want is on the way. Though both apps are great !
  • Very nice looking app! Just might have to buy this one. Thanks! Keep up the good work WPC!!
  • Im going to hold off till they get radar intergration.  Up in the PNW, its a bit critical.
  • Exactly right.  
     
    Animated weather radar with history in 5 minute increments and projections into the next couple of hours is a crucial function that all of these apps seem to be forgetting.  Well, all except Weather Channel, but the rest of that app stinks.  I live in north Texas, which has more tornados then almost anyplace in the country.  With that in mind, any weather app I use will have to provide this feature.  
  • App is beautiful.  Confirmed with developer that they use Weather Underground for their data.
  • My tile won't upgrade, has anyone had that problem too? Tried all the steps in "Live Tile Issues" section. Lumia 920 on ATT. I am guessing interference with The Weather Channel?
  • This looks very good.  I really, really, wish that one of these weather apps (weather flow, amazing weather, etc.) would add in an animated weather radar.  Amazing weather has weather radar, but it is not animated, which really stinks if you are trying to see where fronts are moving, etc.  I know that there are weather radar apps, but to me, it seems wrong to have to have multiple apps for something this basic.  The first of these apps which adds in a good looking, accurate, and fast updating weather radar into their app will have a winner.  
    Living in north Texas, in the heart of tornado country, this is a must for me in any app I am going to use, or recommend to others. 
     
  • Great app. But if you don't need the lock screen feature, Amazing Weather HD is better.
  • Actually I find weather flow better. I like their large love tile more. I don't want the tile the same color as my theme, and when you choose that option in amazing weather, it only displays one day forecast.on back of large tile. Weather flow shows 5 days. And amazings medium tile is lame and basically shows the same info as the large tile.
  • Another gripe with weather flow is the 5 day forecast icons on the large tile. All mine shows is 100% clouds every day. When in reality it is going to be mostly sunny every day where I live. The icons on the tile don't have the sun portion of the icon drawn like the ones in the app do, so it falsely appears to be very cloudy all the time
  • Just wishes I could see the detail on lock screen when using high contrast mode... Just the info part!
  • Anyone having an issue with this on an 8X on Verizon? I'm getting an alert that it isn't available for me phone.