WxFix™ Weather by Eelios

We are making some changes to WxFix and the way we sell it on the App Store. First, we’ve stopped offering the “Lite”, or free, version of WxFix. Second, we’ve dropped the price of WxFix Standard to $0.99 (from $3.99).

Why? Simple: Downloads of the Lite (free) version were far outstripping the Standard (paid) version, and we weren’t seeing the conversions of free to paid that we had anticipated. Therefore, since we can’t earn a living from giving away the app for free, we decided to remove the free version from the App Store altogether, and simultaneously lower the price of the Standard version in a bid to make it more attractive from a price standpoint.

You can expect to see a new version of WxFix, slightly re-named, on the App Store sometime in the next few weeks. This version will incorporate global forecasts; that is, you’ll be able to get a forecast for any point anywhere on the planet. We’re pretty sure WxFix is the first mobile app to provide this kind global forecasts all in one app. This means we’ll be able to offer WxFix on other country app stores, which we’re excited about, and which we’ve been unable to do until now.

If you have already paid for WxFix Standard, fear not! You’ll be able to download the new, re-named version as a free upgrade as with previous version upgrades.

We hope you understand why we’re making these changes. Also, we’ll reveal the new name soon. If you have any questions, concerns or feedback please let us know. Thanks!

Ok, so we’ve been a little sparse on our blog updates of late. Have to do a better job there, for sure. But we’ve also been working on the global version of WxFix, and it’s been taking longer than we anticipated to get right. Because of the type of forecasting technology we are using, time zones calcs are important — and more difficult/time consuming than we thought they’d be — to implement and have work properly. We don’t want to release an app that doesn’t work in some time zones, or messes up forecasts in others, so we’re spending additional time to make sure things work they way they’re supposed to.

Also, you may see a name change in the app. We’re trying to avoid a drastic name change, but because of the way people have to search for apps in the App Store on iTunes, “WxFix” poses some discovery limitations. We’ll keep everyone posted on this and what it means as we get closer to launch.

That said, we’re closer now to being ready to release the global version than we were a month ago, so we can say with a bit more certainty that it’ll be “soon.” That’s about as accurate as I can put right now. In the meantime, please let us know if you have any questions or comments about WxFix. Thanks for your support!

Hello, and Happy 2010! It’s been several weeks since our last post, but we’ve been hard at work implementing the next major upgrade to WxFix – global forecasts. We think having the ability to get forecasts for almost anywhere in the world is a really significant upgrade to WxFix, for obvious reasons. Naturally, we plan to expand the availability of WxFix to App Stores for other countries, too.

We’ve starting our pre-release testing, and so far so good. It works well – you can search for a location and drop a pin just about anywhere in the world and get current wx and a 6-day forecast, just like in the U.S. We expect to have some global radar capability too, although this is more of a problem getting implemented. Radar coverage in many parts of the world is spotty at best, and sometimes non-existent. For countries that do have decent radar coverage (some have better wx radar coverage than in the U.S.), it is costly to obtain the data – whereas NWS radar data feed is free, in most other countries you have to pay for it. Nonetheless, we hope to have a workaround implemented and in place providing at least some radar capability in certain parts of the world outside the U.S.

So please look for this new WxFix global weather capability update sometime in late Jan. We’ll be sure and post on update here to coincide with its debut on the App Store.

From all of us at Eelios, we’d like to thank you for your support in 2009, our debut year. It’s nerve wracking launching a new product, but it’s fun, and it’s worth it. Any business like ours ultimately relies on you, the customer, to take a chance and give a new product like WxFix a try. And we can unequivocally say, thanks for taking a chance on Eelios and WxFix.

Thanks for downloading (and even buying!) WxFix and giving it a shot. Thanks for providing us with your numerous comments and helpful feedback. Thanks for sticking it out through a few pretty major bug issues we experienced recently with v1.6 of the app. Thanks for telling your friends, family, colleagues – basically, anybody who’ll listen – about WxFix. Most of all, thanks for becoming a customer.

2010 promises to be an even better year, and hopefully we’ll be able to bring out more good things, and make WxFix even better and more user-friendly. We look forward to it, and to your continued support and feedback.

Indeed, here’s to a great 2010. Thanks and Cheers!

Newest version of WxFix, v1.6.1, is now live on the App Store. This update addresses two bugs found in v1.6.0: The calendar year rollover problem, and the metric/celsius default lock problem. Both are now fixed.

Thank you Apple for expediting review/approval of this version!

The new 1.6 version of WxFix has been approved by Apple and should be on the App Store sometime later today. This new version includes a metric setting (celsius, km/h, etc) and a turn-off setting for alerts for each favorite location. Both of these were consistently requested upgrades from users.

The new year rollover bug mention in the previous post has also been fixed… or more accurately, we’ve implemented and tested the fix (it works) and will be uploading a v1.6 patch to iConnect today, as v1.6.1. We will request expedited review in the hopes in an attempt to have this patch get posted to the App Store ASAP.

Once again, we apologize for this new year rollover bug, and we appreciate your patience with this as we work to implement and post a patched version that fixes this problem.

Just when you think things are going okay, something comes up and bites you in the a**. In this case, as many of you may have noticed already, Wx ix has a day forecast problem in going into 2010. If you bring up the app you will notice that the forecast for Jan 1 2010 and beyond shows sunny and 70 deg F. This is null default value, and it’s there because the app apparently is not able to read the new year, so is looking for forecast data for “Jan 1″ but doesn’t recognize 2010. Oops.

This problem will take care of itself after midnight on Jan 1, 2010, as the app will then be able to correctly read the time stamps on the incoming forecast updates. But until then, post-Jan 1 forecasts are going to be messed up and show the null default value.

In the meantime, our dev team has implemented a fix for this problem, it’s being tested to make sure it works, and we will get it uploaded ASAP as a new version to iConnect for review by Apple. Unfortunately, even if we get it uploaded today it won’t likely get posted on the App Store for at least a week, since the review process takes at least a week to complete.

We apologize for this problem and any frustration and inconvenience it may cause. Again, we’re working on getting the fix for this problem on the App Store ASAP. Thank you.

The Eelios Team

We’d like to thank Macworld and app reviewer Jeff Merron for the good – and very fair – review of our WxFix weather app. We really appreciate the exposure and welcome the feedback, both the good and not-so good. As we endeavor to improve WxFix going forward this is invaluable feedback to have. Many thanks, and Happy Holidays!

Link to Macworld review of WxFix Standard: http://www.macworld.com/appguide/app.html?id=311598

Well folks, it’s time for a new WxFix update. We submitted a new version of WxFix Standard – version 1.6 – to Apple for review. This is a version update for WxFix Standard only; WxFix Lite will remain unchanged.

So, what’s new with v1.6?

First, we’ve added a metric option – celsius, etc – which you’ll be able to turn on or off via the iPhone settings main page (you’ll scroll down to where the app setting are, tap on WxFix, you’ll see a “Use Metric” on/off slider). We’ve had requests for this functionality almost from the start, so this should be really useful to a lot of people. Especially those living outside the US.

Which brings up the next big functional upgrade – global weather. Yes, we’ll be incorporating weather forecasts for other countries. This will likely be a late December or early January service upgrade, and you’ll need v1.6 of WxFix Standard to get it (in other words, this won’t be available on WxFix Lite).  If you live or travel outside the US you’ll be able to see weather forecasts of similar locational accuracy for most parts of the world. We’re also working on securing sources of non-US radar data. This is a bit of an undertaking, and the radar function may not be available initially for all parts of the world… at least not until we can get the sourcing issue sorted out. Please bear with us here…

Another good functional upgrade is NWS severe weather alert turn-off. This has been another recurring request from our customers – to be able to turn off alerts for your favorites. With v1.6 you’ll be able to do this for each individual saved favorite location and get alerts only for the locations you want to monitor for severe weather.

There’s also a bug fix or two, but that’s what’s new functionally. Assuming we don’t get rejected and have to re-do something and re-submit, look for WxFix Standard v1.6 on the App Store sometime in the next week or two.

WxFix has been on the market on Apple’s App Store for over two months now. In that time we’ve released two version updates with another coming out soon. We’ve gotten quite a lot of feedback directly from you, our customers, and this has been very informative and helpful toward making WxFix a better product.

So far from everybody we’ve heard from, people are pretty pleased with their WxFix experience overall, and enjoy using it day in and day out. This is great to hear, and we thank you for your support and feedback.

We’d like to ask you to help us spread the word online and off about WxFix to family, friends, neighbors and colleagues. Whether via Twitter, Email, Facebook, MySpace, casual party conversation, or tailgating at a football game, we’d really appreciate it if you help us get the word out to people you know about WxFix and what it does for you, and can do for them. After all, the more the merrier this Merry time of year!

Thank you, and Happy Holidays from all of us at Eelios!