WeatherFixâ„¢ by Eelios

WeartherFix Global 1.1 was just released on the App Store. It’s free to download if you’ve already purchased WeatherFix Global 1.0. What’s new and improved with WeatherFix Global 1.1?

Fixed – Crash when running on iOS 4.x
Fixed – UI freezes when updating weather data
Fixed – Time calculation is off when dropping pins outside of the US
Fixed – Radar loses its place when zooming on the map
Fixed – Using search bar on maps view causes a crash
Removed search tab to simplify UI
Added support for iPhone4 and iPod Touch 4G in downloading radar
Removed bluetooth syncing
Uses iOS 4.0 mapkit APIs for drop and drag of pins

Enjoy!

We submitted a new version of WeatherFix (v1.1) about three weeks ago for App Store review/approval/release. As of today, according to the Apple iConnect developer site, it will be released upon release of iOS 4.2. Apparently, since we built the new version to iOS 4.2 standards, it won’t be released on the App Store until Apple releases 4.2 to the general public. Anyway, at least its release is imminent.

Here’s a summary of WeatherFix v1.1 fixes and improvements:

Fixed – Crash when running on iOS 4.x
Fixed – UI freezes when updating weather data
Fixed – Time calculation is off when dropping pins outside of the US
Fixed – Radar loses its place when zooming on the map
Fixed – Using search bar on maps view causes a crash
Removed search tab to simplify UI
Added support for iPhone4 and iPod Touch 4G in downloading radar
Removed bluetooth syncing
Uses iOS 4.0 mapkit APIs for drop and drag of pins

Well, we’re finally getting a fix implemented for the crash problem caused by OSx 4.1.

The crash problem in a nutshell: Normally, when you first open up WeatherFix (and certain other apps, too, as you may have noticed), the app looks for the unique device identifier first (to confirm it’s your device that it’s downloaded to), and if it sees the right number it opens up. If it can’t find the identifier, however, the app shuts down. Well, Apple changed the identifier protocol with the OS 4.1 firmware update, so when you try to open WeatherFix, it looks for your device identifier, can’t find it (it’s looking for the identifier based on the old protocol), and consequently shuts down.

So, we’re implementing a fix and hope to have the new version on the App Store in the next week or two, depending on how long it takes Apple to review and approve the update. The fix should also take care of the radar screen problem when you try to zoom in or move the map on the radar display. This issue has to do with the way the embedded Google maps API reverse geo-codes the radar overlay, which completely changed in OS 4.0.

We apologize it’s taken us this long to get this done, but the fix(es) is (are) now finally on the way.

Well,  it’s taking us longer to update WeatherFix to OS4 than we anticipated. Also, as Apple keeps releasing updates to 4.0 – now 4.1 and soon 4.2 – there’s lots to take into account as far as updates are concerned.

We understand people are having problems with WeatherFix crashing after updating their iPhone to the latest OS 4.1 version update. 4.1 seems to be affecting other apps as well, so there’s apparently something going on with the OS 4.1 update that is causing these crashes. We are investigating, but don’t have an estimate as to when we’ll have an updated version available. We will, however, keep everyone informed.

Thanks for your patience and continued comments and suggestions.

Well, the new iPhone OS 4.0 came out this month and we were caught a bit flat footed. Some testing we did had indicated there would be no big problems with the 3.2 OS version of WeatherFix working on an iPhone updated to 4.0. We were wrong. There are some performance issues, so we’re now going back an updating Weather Fix to OS 4.0. Should have an updated version out (hopefully) around mid-July.

WeatherFix Global is now available on the App Store. This replaces WeatherFix v1.7.

WeatherFix Global includes global weather forecasts covering the entire planet using the same gridded forecast engine we use for US forecasts. The only difference is that in certain parts of the world, due to forecast data availability and other factors, the geospatial accuracy of the forecasts will be from between 1 sq. km and up to 20 sq. km, versus 1 sq. km across the USA. Most of Europe, for example, should be on 1 sq. km grid.

Also, there is currently no radar available outside of the US and parts of southern Canada. Actually, there are radar feeds, available, it’s just quite expensive to use and the integration for the various available feeds is not necessarily uniform. We are working on a solution for this and hope to have something available later this spring or early summer. So please stay tuned….

We expect to add an enhanced forecast in the near future, covering the immediate 6 hour time period. This enhance immediate-term forecast uses greater observed weather data and various satellite feeds to better predict near-term forecasts. We are pretty sure this will be a running addition to the WeatherFix service, and will be “turned on” in the “backend” servers that support WeatherFix, and not in the app  itself. Thus, you probably won’t need to download an updated version of the app. At least that’s the plan.

We have posted this version on the App Store as an entirely new app due to the inclusion of the global forecast capability and to have the app placed at the top of the “new releases” in the App Store (albeit temporarily), which we hope facilitates greater visibility, and therefore more downloads, of the app by the iPhone/iPod touch community of users.

WeatherFix Global is available on the following country app stores:

Australia

Austria

Belgium

Bulgaria

Canada

Czech Republic

Denmark

Estonia

Finland

France

Germany

Greece

Hungary

Ireland

Italy

Latvia

Lithuania

Luxembourg

Malta, Republic of

Netherlands

Poland

Portugal

Romania

Slovakia

Slovenia

Spain

Sweden

Switzerland

United Kingdom

United States

The data center reported they fixed the switch failure. WeatherFix service is now back online. Now, we’ll need to talk to the data center and find our why they didn’t provide a switch failover to prevent interruption like any datacenter worth its salt should.

The data center housing our WeatherFix servers reported a switch failure today at 4:57PM MT. They say they have technicians working on replacing the failed switch, but in the meantime WeatherFix service may be interrupted temporarily. We apologize for any service interruption you may experience and hope the data center can get the switch replaced and back online shortly.

And it only took Apple about 24 hours to review and approve it for sale. Wow, that was fast! Anyway, you can now buy / download the first global weather app available on the App Store — WeatherFix v1.7. Your weather for anywhere on earth, anytime you need it. Only $1.99 on the App Store. Enjoy!

Well, we finally submitted WeatherFix v1.7 to Apple for review. This is the global version which will enable you to get a forecast literally for anywhere on earth. (Previously WxFix has only provided forecasts for the continental US.) With luck we’ll have it up on the App Store in 30 countries (including the US) very shortly.

There are a few caveats with WeatherFix 1.7 globally (i.e., outside of the US) that we need to make note of: First, lack of radar coverage outside of the US. We has hoped to have a non-US radar solution in time for this release, but for a variety of reasons (cost, radar feed availability/coverage, data feed integration issues) we were unable to get this done. We are continuing to look into this issue and hope to have at least a partial answer sometime this spring or early summer (or fall or early winter if you’re south of the equator).

Second, the grid forecast locational accuracy. In the US WeatherFix (or WxFix) is on a 1 sq. kilometer grid; that is, the forecast you get in the US is for the 1 sq kilometer of real estate in which your dropped pin or saved favorite sits. Outside the US the grid size will vary from 1 sq. kilometer up to 50 sq. kilometers. This is a function of how the gridded forecasting engine that WeatherFix uses works, and is highly dependent on how much local/regional weather forecast data is available for a particular part of the world. As you might imagine, it varies widely, especially in remote areas of the world, where most of the forecast “input” is inferential vs. observational.

Notice the name change: We’re now calling it “WeatherFix” vs. “WxFix.” Because of how users search for apps on the App Store, we decided that “WxFix” was not very searchable. Because “Wx” is the abbreviation for “weather” we decide to make the change and just spell it out, and make it much easier (hopefully) for App Store users to search for it. Note: If you bought a previous version of WxFix you’ll be able to download this new version free as with previous version upgrades.

The 30 countries WeatherFix will available include:

Australia

Austria

Belgium

Bulgaria

Canada

Czech Republic

Denmark

Estonia

Finland

France

Germany

Greece

Hungary

Ireland

Italy

Latvia

Lithuania

Luxembourg

Malta, Republic of

Netherlands

Poland

Portugal

Romania

Slovakia

Slovenia

Spain

Sweden

Switzerland

United Kingdom

United States

So, look for WeatherFix 1.7 soon (hopefully) on the App Store.