We’ve thrown this around in our head for some time now, and we finally decided to pull the trigger and disable site comments. There was no particular event that forced us to do this, and we weren’t encumbered by moderation problems like much larger sites are. So why bother nixing comments?

Over the past several weeks, we read various opinions across the blogosphere on commenting, and we decided that we agreed with the camp that many single-author sites fall into, which sounds something like this: “This is our blog, and if you want your own voice, comment on your blog.” It’s not a matter of control, or humbleness, but rather a philosophical stance that we believe harbors more useful commentary and discussion.

For one, mendax.org doesn’t get a lot of commentary to begin with. Of the commentary it does get, a good percentage is from people we’re already familiar with, who we already follow on Twitter, or Google Plus, or simply know in real life. Those people can just as easily comment using any of these networks, and we can easily comment back. The rest of the individuals who want to comment probably use one of these social networks also, so it’s easy for them to utilize these networks to comment here if they so choose.

Of the remaining individuals who choose not to have a social networking account, and still want to comment, there’s always e-mail. This should cut down on the number of non-productive comments we get, as feedback that’s direct (either via an @WyldKard at Twitter, else a direct e-mail) tends to be more constructive.

Two, we believe that a lot of useful information sometimes gets lost in a site’s comments. We’ve felt this when leaving commentary elsewhere, and we took a stance some time back that, if we have a real position worth leaving a comment for, we’d sooner write about it at mendax.org and give a link back to the post we’re commenting on. Not only does this help drive traffic to the person we’re commenting to, but it tends to make our response more thought out.

In a way, we liken this to the back-and-forth that philosophers and scientists had yesteryear, which was by way of letter. This slow, almost tedious approach provided both detailed thoughts, as well as a more three-dimensional banter between parties. The same can be done across blogs thanks to trackbacks and tweets, as a more detailed picture of the involved parties can be drawn in the context of their own blogs. As a bonus, this fosters a more personal exchange, and therefore, one less prone to personal attacks.

Three, our own comments to our posts often get lost over time, when a detailed response to a reader could just as easily become its own post. We believe it makes more sense to flush such responses out as a new entry, than to minimize its importance to our position in a sub-comment.

Four, the decision follows a more minimalist approach.The site is simpler, and in our opinion, cleaner because of it. No longer do we need to worry about whether our anti-spam plugins are working, and no longer do we need to worry about catching a comment alert via e-mail, or in WordPress’ admin section. Rather, we can rely on notifications we check for other purposes daily, and be better engaged with our audience. From a plugin perspective, it also means there’s less WordPress needs to handle, and less load the server needs to provide.¹

We’re not necessarily attached to this change long-term, but would like to try it out to see how well it fosters discussion and cross-linking over the near future. If it doesn’t seem to be working out, we can always go back, but this change seems right for what we envision the site to be.

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On Friday, we drove by two Targets, a Best Buy, and an AT&T store to see if anyone was selling the Jawbone UP early. None were. The reports we heard about UPs selling early must have been very isolated experiences, though it seems people had more success at Apple stores, who apparently are more likely to not play by the rules.¹ Both Target stores we visited had places set aside, complete with labels, for the three sizes of the UP initially available, yet employees at neither store could tell me whether they already sold out of their UP stock, or if they hadn’t received any yet. We decided to return to the AT&T store on Sunday morning.

We had sized our wrist using the printable template available at the UP site. This proved to be a waste of time, because not only did the AT&T store have demo units out to try on, but the packaging on each UP box has a plastic template included, so buyers can check for their size when in the store. It’s a nice touch, and shows Jawbone’s attention to detail. So we bought our UP, and set it up in the car on the way home.² We won’t bother to give a full review here, because we found Shawn Wall’s review to be plenty thorough for a product that’s only officially been on shelves for less than two days, but we will respond to some points he made for the sake of completeness.

The rubberized bracelet is bendable to a degree. It’s not the simplest task in the world getting it on or off your wrist, but thankfully you don’t really need to take it off given its waterproof nature.

Jawbone actually calls the bracelet water resistant, and only to a fairly shallow depth. The idea is that you can wash your hands, and even take it into the shower, without worrying about it getting damaged. We even saw a picture of someone wearing it in a shallow pool, so the idea that you can wear it most places is obviously something Jawbone wants customers to understand. But don’t think about taking the UP diving. In fact, the notion of taking this thing in the ocean makes us a bit uncomfortable, and we’d rather someone else tried it first.

When we took a shower this morning, our hesitation for getting the UP wet made us take it off. It’s not like you’ll be missing out on too much activity tracking in those few minutes of the morning anyway. Though, we did notice that the black rubberized band³ attracts dirt pretty quickly, so wearing it into the shower may not be a bad idea after all.

As far as bendability goes, the UP has to be somewhat bendable to get it on and off. But that’s only for the “ends” of the band, and the bendability is temporary. In other words, you can’t bend the UP into a different shape, or make it larger or smaller.

There’s really not much in the way of moving parts here; there is a button at one end that is used for switching modes (more on that later), and the opposite end has a cap that is pulled off to reveal the 3.5mm male jack that is used to sync the device with your mobile phone (currently iPhone-only, but Android “coming soon”).

The one thing we don’t like about the UP is that the button on one end, as well as the cap, is painted silver. We’d much rather have these match the main band colour, as we don’t expecially like the accent color. The cap is only silver on one side though, so if you put it on backwards, it appears black to all but the closest observer. A backwards cap also means you’re not proudly displaying “Jawbone” written on your jewelry; we don’t need to advertise for the company we already supported by buying their product. Depending on how much we dislike the button on the other end being an “off” colour, we may end up painting it black down the road.

One really great feature in regards to sleep is that the bracelet can be used as an alarm clock using vibration. Even better, it supposedly will wake you up out of a light sleep instead of a deep sleep by getting you up a little earlier if it can (by looking at your deep vs. light sleep somehow).

This feature worked well for us this morning, though to be fair, we didn’t sleep all that great last night anyway, and noticeably tumbled around a bunch. In this case, we were quick to feel the pulsing vibration of the alarm, but we wonder if it will wake us on days that we have a deeper sleep. Today, it woke us up 15 minutes early. We’re considering doing a side-by-side test of the UP and Sleep Cycle iPhone app to see how consistent the two are, or if one tends to go off before the other. For now, though, we expect the UP to handle our alarms equally well, if not better, with the only concern being whether the vibration is strong enough to rouse us from a deep sleep.

One of my favorite feature of the device is found in this area. You can set your bracelet to remind you to be active if you are sedentary for too long. The time range is user defined. This is great as it can remind us programmers to get out of our chairs once an hour

We’re rather fond of this feature also. We have it enabled during business hours, and its a great reminder to get up and do something, even if it’s just to pee or get some fresh water.

I do not own another pedometor, Fitbit or anything else along those lines so I cannot speak for the accuracy of the UP. It feels like the numbers are too high though.

Whether they’re too high or not, all we can say is that the “lightly active” category is cake during an average weekend, and that’s not even with workout scheduled. From noon until night yesterday, we scored over 8k steps taken, which means we can easily up our steps goal to the next level. We’ll have to see how our weekend activity compares to the average workday to see whether it’s worth adjusting our goals at this time, though.

The food diary portion of the application is well… a little underwhelming in my opinion.

We haven’t played with this feature too much yet, and honestly, we’re not too tempted considering there’s no way to count calories. We’ve used other apps to compare our caloric intake to our ideal goal (at least 3k calories a day), and the fact that such a simple feature is missing makes us feel like we’d gain little from the UP app’s inclusion of a food log. Maybe once this feature becomes more robust, we’ll be more likely to keep up with it.

Game mechanics are a huge portion to an offering such as the UP, and I feel they currently fall a little short.

We agree with Shawn here, and don’t like how simply accepting a challenge means others who accepted the challenge can suddenly see your progress. We’d prefer “private” challenges that don’t involved any reporting, or at the very least, allow users to select a username instead of their registered (true) name. Sure, the public feed only uses first names, but we’d still prefer a nickname.

The problem of the food log and the game mechanics points at the one flaw the UP currently has, and that’s a very simplistic piece of software. If Jawbone maintains a regular release schedule of updates and bug fixes, however, we can truly see the pair being a useful lifestyle assistant for some time to come.

More thoughts to follow as we spend more time with our new bracelet.

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The talk of late is Apple’s further foray into the television industry, pushing beyond the Apple TV into a full-fledged televisions. And the question, of course, is how Apple will do it, and the only certain thing everyone agrees on is that Apple will revolutionize television by completely revamping it, instead of iterative improvement ala DVRs. Logically, this means that live streaming of television may be off the table, and we consider that a good thing, because as this post’s title suggests, flicking through channels in search of something good is dumb.

Chris Martucci sides with those who like channel surfing:

Being in direct control is not always desirable. It’s why we still use services such as StumbleUpon and Pandora. I don’t want to always choose the song I want to listen to. Sometimes, I want to be at the mercy of chance. There’s nothing wrong with that.

But channel surfing isn’t just leaving things up to chance, because the next station you’re about to tune into is the one right next to the one you’re already on in numerical order. If you scroll up in the channel list, you’re always seeing the same sequence of channels flash by. If you scroll down it’s still the same sequence, only in reverse. And chances are, you may very well miss out on something good because you stop on something good enough only a few channels away. And half the time, you’re just bypassing commercials anyway, so you’re wasting an enormous amount of time scrolling through crap because you apparently have nothing better to do.

Making the television a device where you watch what you demand is far more efficient. It’s the “every channel is an app” philosophy wherein you request exactly the show you want, only to have it stream accordingly. Ideally, there wouldn’t be any commercials, and you won’t get sidetracked with mediocre shows unless you specifically request them. And that model doesn’t remove the concept of “chance”, because discovery of shows you don’t request is still possible: either you can discover new shows with a recommendation engine ala Pandora¹, else you can select a “true” random function that will start playing anything from the Apple television library. Either option serves Martucci’s need to stumble across new programming, but it removes much of the inefficiency of how channel surfers do it today.

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Following up our post on handwriting apps for the iPad, we recently revisited some of the apps we tried, and replaced, with Notes Plus. We’ve been waiting for the new version of Notes Plus to hit the AppStore, but it’s likely still some weeks off, and in the meantime, the competition has released point releases offering more functionality. Maybe Notes Plus will retake the crown when 3.0 hits later this autumn, but for now, it’s not the clear winner in this genre anymore.

Penultimate has a paper store now, where you can download additional backgrounds to write on. It also allows importing of pictures to mock up, and as always, it offers arguably the best “ink” feel of any of the apps in this category. While a zoom feature is planned, the current lack of this feature keeps it from being a serious note-taking tool for more than quick sketches and notes.¹

We also took another look at Noteshelf, which now sports a zoom window that’s configurable and auto-advances. We’ve actually grown to like the non-auto-advance zoom window that Notes Plus has, if only because the auto-advance feature tends to introduce momentary lag; the Notes Plus zoom box is simply quicker to write on. That said, since the zoom window can be customized, it’s easy to write at exactly the size you want, regardless of paper style used. (And Noteshelf has a paper store too, now.)

Noteshelf has better notebook organization now, too, as notebooks can be grouped, which somewhat emulates folders. The design of the app is overall more aesthetically pleasing, too, and the inking is nearly on par with Penultimate. Between the design and ink quality, this makes using Noteshelf a far more pleasing experience than Notes Plus. Another new feature is importing photos, and while they can’t be resized once placed on a page, this is a top feature we want in this type of app, and the fact that it remains lacking in Notes Plus is unfortunate. What we’d prefer is if our scribbles over an imported photo remain independent from the photo, but this and the lack of image resizing isn’t a deal-breaker.²

Notes Plus still offers audio recording, which is an awesome feature, but one we don’t really use. It’s nice to know that the feature is there, but since we don’t rely on it most of the time, Notes Plus has fallen off our main screen and was replaced by Noteself. It’s interesting how close these apps are to one another in terms of quality, however, and we can easily see Notes Plus regaining the throne in short order, or even Penultimate launching itself to the top with the inclusion of zoom functionality.

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Talking about stands for the iPad that would work just as well regardless of iPad orientation, and regardless of whether your work surface is a tabletop or your lap, we proposed a unique design back in May:

…a more convenient accessory for the iPad would be a well-designed “clip” that attaches to Apple’s bluetooth keyboard with a stand for the iPad in either orientation. This would be a fairly small gadget, would complement existing iPad accessories, and allow one to use the iPad in a lap environment without forcing the user into a given orientation. There are several accessories that exist to incorporate a physical keyboard into an iPad user’s workflow, but nothing yet that’s this versatile which maintains the iPad’s flexibility for supreme mobility when a physical keyboard isn’t needed.

Shortly after we wrote that, we placed an order for the InCase Origami Workstation, which we’ve used ever since. Our only complaint with the InCase solution is that because the Origami Workstation wraps around Apple’s bluetooth keyboard, there’s wasted space in our briefcase when we travel. Before, the bluetooth keyboard could be slid between papers, or sit battery-side down against the briefcase wall, but with the Origami Workstation wrapped around it, the keyboard is a larger “wedge” that takes up more room. It’s not a huge deal, but when space in the briefcase is at a premium, we’d prefer a smaller footprint.¹

Fortunately, there’s a solution on the horizon that’s a much closer match to what we described back in May. Before funding ended, we managed to support Kickstarter project WINGStand, which is a two-part clip system that attaches to an Apple bluetooth keyboard, allowing you to rest an iOS device on the resulting stand. As soon as our WINGStand arrives, we’ll be sure to comment on real-world use. But, if you missed the Kickstarter campaign and can’t wait to pick one up now, there’s a web site set up to take orders.

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Gary Arndt talks about using the iPad while traveling, and his review is perfectly reasonable until he mentions content creation.

[The iPad] is fine for sending out tweets, replying to email or updating Facebook. I have never written a blog post nor have I edited a photo taken on my SLR with the iPad. I could do it, but it just wasn’t designed as a tool for content creation.

There’s only one problem with Arndt’s take on this: it’s wrong. To argue that the iPad wasn’t designed for content creation because you don’t use it for such is ignoring a considerable number of iPad owners who do manage to successfully create content on the device, and ultimately speaks nothing of Apple’s intended use of the device; the fact that Apple has itself released content creation tools for the iPad (e.g. iMovie) tells us that the iPad was indeed designed as a tool for content creation.

Arndt seems a little confused, because he does mention doing some photo editing on his iPhone. And, while he complains about the virtual keyboard for longer written pieces, he states early on in his review that he doesn’t use an external keyboard. Well, why not? That would obviously address the issue of the virtual keyboard not being a good enough tool for sustained writing sessions.

Naturally, TUAW picked up the story and couldn’t help but chime in on the iPad hate, because apparently it’s trendy to dismiss the iPad as a long-term travel companion because the new MacBook Air is so damn sexy.

As Arndt points out, yes it’s great to be able to carry dozens of books with you on your travels, but what’s not great is the limited battery life your iPad is going to give you while reading (blame it on the LCD display, which is much more power-hungry than the e-ink screens of many dedicated ereaders). If you’re a huge reader, stick to a Kindle or my preferred choice, the paperback.

Only, bringing paperbacks on extended trips puts us right back in the situation Arndt used to find himself in (toting around media), instead of consolidating his media in one compact device. And we really have to wonder how much battery life you need in an eBook reader. Is the iPad’s 10+ hours of battery life in airplane mode insufficient for eBook reading? Who is traveling for that amount of time without access to electricity? For hardcore travelers, there are several backup batteries available that will allow you to do more than just read eBooks while on the go, and if you’re truly out in the country without access to the electric grid, there are solar chargers available that work wonderfully.

But yeah, Michael Grothaus back to the MacBook Air:

But the biggest reason I won’t be taking my iPad with me is because I do a lot of content creation on the road. I write books and for blogs and magazines. The level of writing I do makes the touchscreen keyboard on the iPad impractical — and the 11″ MacBook Air a godsend.

Again, use a fucking external keyboard. Thinking you’re a fancy-pants book and magazine writer has no bearing on your ability to write on the iPad, because there are several external keyboard options available to you. And when you don’t need it, the iPad’s smaller footprint kicks in and offers flexibility that your shiny new MacBook Air doesn’t. If you argued that you needed specific functionality in, say, Photoshop, or you needed to work in a CAD environment, you’d have a solid argument for needing a notebook, but you’re a writer, and there are plenty of solid writing apps for the iPad that people have used to, you know, write books.

Does anyone else think articles like this are just excuses for justifying a new MacBook Air purchase?

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In a response to Paul Thorrott on Apple not making giant leaps between major OS revisions, John Gruber points out the difference is clearer when you look at OS X from its first incarnation to today:

With Mac OS X in particular, to my recollection, Thurrott has had this same take for every single major (i.e., new cat name) release. Every single one, he’s considered to be “minor” and “evolutionary”. But man, compare Lion side-by-side with Mac OS X (“Cheetah”) and you’ll weep with joy at how much better it’s gotten. This is how Apple rolls — steady, relentless, incremental progress.

Not only is the improvement obvious in a more macro-level view across several revisions, but we’d argue that the lack of major design changes between revisions is a blessing. While there may be obvious differences between Cheetah and Lion for computer nerds, the average person will find Cheetah and Lion to be similar beasts, and only by digging a bit deeper will they stumble upon the more obvious differences. The only major shakeup to the Mac was when MacOS was scrapped and OS X took off.

Things are different on Windows; almost every major revision has irked users. Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows ME, Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Vista, and now Windows 7. Ups and downs. No real consistency in whether an upgrade ended up being preferential to a previous version or not (with the obvious flops being WinME and Vista). And the confusion hasn’t just been with interface changes and application compatibility, which is pretty clear when you look at the vast list of versions that have hit the market.

Apple, meanwhile, has put out only two versions of OS X at a time: the basic version and a server variant, with prices more in line with what consumers can afford. And all versions have been “OS X,” with mere numerical differences and cat names serving as layman code-names. So even the naming_convention that Apple uses is consistent with their design philosophy, which is simple_yet_elegant. How Microsoft hasn’t learned to do better yet is a a curiosity that truly boggles the mind.

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The iPhone case frenzy has officially become retarded, thanks to entries like Snow Peak’s new titanium cover. Not only does it come in at $120, but it degrades cellular reception.

But it’s the desire to encase every gadget in plastic or metal that has us really confused, and it’s a bandwagon we found ourselves on after we replaced our 2G iPhone with a 3GS. Previously, we never seriously thought about getting a case for any of our devices, from prior cell phones to notebook computers. We did at some time use cell phone holsters, but never a full case. Why add unnecessary bulk to a device that’s already not too comfortable in a front pocket?

Apple’s changed their iPhone design to make cases less important, but people don’t seem to get this. From Gizmodo’s report on the aforementioned Snow Peak cover:

The cover slides on the back and is designed to protect the glassy exterior from scratches, dents and dings.

The whole point of the glassy exterior of the iPhone, outside of an aesthetic design note, is that glass doesn’t dent or ding. So really, what these cases do is protect the glass from scratching ¹, which while possible, is much less likely than if the exterior were made of plastic or metal. Really, the only areas of the iPhone 4 that can get dinged or dented are the antenna and plastic around the edge of the device. Apple’s so confident that typical use-induced abrasions are a non-factor with the iPhone 4 that their official “case”, the iPhone bumper, adds minimal bulk by merely elevating the glass exterior a small amount from any surface the iPhone is set down on. Arguably, the bumper does more to combat people’s antennagate conspiracies than serve as actual protection for the device, because the latter isn’t much of a concern. Who’s setting their iPhone down on sharp, jaggy surfaces, anyway?

We didn’t buy a case for our iPhone 4. We did get the free bumper, and did use it for a short while. Ultimately, we took it off because the bumper made docking the iPhone more difficult in our car, and ultimately we remembered what we did with our iPhone 2G: keep the phone in a microfiber pouch. It’s a pouch we scavenged from an old pair of Oakley sunglasses, and the pouch keeps the iPhone mostly smudge-free. When that cleaning doesn’t happen automatically, at least we have a microfiber cloth on-hand for dealing with that, and it’s also useful when we’re out and about with our sunglasses that also tend to get dirty. The best part is that this adds even less bulk than the bumper, and it’s far more useful.

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The iPhone Blog posted a poll today asking how people tend to use the iPhone’s virtual keyboard, and surprisingly, after 3k votes, portrait-based use is currently in the lead. We guess that this is based primarily on the amount of screen real-estate left after the virtual keyboard is displayed, as the landscape keyboard hides so much of the screen. If the same poll were held for the iPad, we would assume the results to be different: the landscape keyboard, while still hiding more of the screen than the portrait-based version, still leaves enough showing that enough of the working document can be seen to still be useful. Further, the iPad, simply being a larger device, lends itself better to a higher quantity of words typed, whereas the iPhone is generally used more for quick snippets of data input.

The fact that the iPad’s landscape-based keyboard is more popular is evidenced by the number of cases and stands that put the iPad in a landscape orientation in which the rear of the device is slightly elevated. This makes sense from a matter of comfort, but what if the user wants to use a physical keyboard? In this scenario, Apple’s bluetooth implementation works splendidly, allowing users a platform much better suited for considerable text input, if only for the tactile feedback of a real keyboard. The problem with this setup is that because most accessories are built around the landscape-based virtual keyboard as the ideal method for data input, users are typically forced to keep their iPads in landscape orientation, even when a physical keyboard is used.

Take Apple’s Smart Cover, for example. It works as a great stand for when the iPad is to be propped up in landscape view, effectively emulating the screen of a notebook computer. The Smart Cover is not, however, smart enough to realize that some users prefer portrait orientation when using a physical keyboard¹. Often, we wish our Smart Cover didn’t fold up on the long-side of the iPad, but rather the short-side, which would allow us to have a portrait-based stand. The Smart Cover is only one example, however: look at the enormous number of case options for the iPad, and see how many of them work well as a stand in portrait view.

The forced-use of landscape orientation remains problematic when using the iPad on a lap alongside a physical keyboard: people’s laps simply aren’t long enough to accommodate both devices when the iPad is oriented for a portrait view². Some stands, like the official Apple iPad dock, are designed specifically for portrait view, because the dock connector is at the bottom. This is the option we opted for with our original iPad, but we didn’t replace the dock when we moved to an iPad 2 because the dock is oddly-shaped for travel, and serves a very niche purpose; for lap use, like when we’re lounging on the couch, the iPad dock is useless³.

Kickstarter project goDock attempts to solve the issue of multiple-orientation-use of the iPad on one’s lap. Unlike most keyboard/iPad cases that lock the screen in landscape orientation, the goDock is more of a sleeve that holds both an iPad and a keyboard, and then allows the user to place the iPad into an insert in either orientation, effectively simulating a notebook computer experience, albeit with the flexibility of adjusting screen orientation. The goDock is a unique accessory, and would replace one’s current iPad sleeve, which isn’t necessarily fitting for everyone⁴.

We can’t help but think that a more convenient accessory for the iPad would be a well-designed “clip” that attaches to Apple’s bluetooth keyboard with a stand for the iPad in either orientation. This would be a fairly small gadget, would complement existing iPad accessories, and allow one to use the iPad in a lap environment without forcing the user into a given orientation. There are several accessories that exist to incorporate a physical keyboard into an iPad user’s workflow, but nothing yet that’s this versatile which maintains the iPad’s flexibility for supreme mobility when a physical keyboard isn’t needed.

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Ben Brooks wrote a solid review of various weather apps for the iPhone, which is quite handy considering how populated this app category is. Marco Arment’s comment on the weather app spectrum is perfect:

The problem here is similar to any other general app category with a lot of potential for customer dissatisfaction, like to-do lists and notepads: the features that I care about aren’t going to perfectly match the features that you, or anyone else, will care about.

We’ve played with several weather apps since the iPhone’s debut in 2007, and none has totally satisfied us. Brooks’ favorite, My-Cast, looks like a solid competitor, but it’s missing some of the features we’ve come to rely on:

1. “Feels like,” is something we now expect on the main screen of any weather app we use. Much of the time, this value doesn’t differ from the current temperature, but when factors like humidity come into play, we prefer this entry over manually estimating how uncomfortable the weather will be.

2. Hourly updates are important, so we have some concept of when it will rain. The fact that the forecast calls for rain showers, for example, is not as useful to us as knowing when those showers will impact our commute, which is especially useful when riding a motorcycle. If we see that rain is expected, but not during our regular commute hours, we’re happy to hop on the motorcycle and get on our merry way. If we expect rain during these periods, we may opt to drive the car to work instead.

3. Precipitation amount is similarly useful, because while the forecast icons may indicate rain, if the amount is expected to be low, then we can dismiss any notion of having to take the car, even if it looks like we may see a shower during our commute hours. For example, when we read that the expected daily precipitation will be .01 inches despite the call for rain around 8am, we consider ourselves good to go.

4. Few apps provide an allergy forecast, but we love this feature when it’s offered. It’s not a feature that’s useful year-round, but does come in handy during peak pollen season. Having to get a second app just for this purpose is simply not convenient.

That said, we’re currently using Fahrenheit as our go-to app. It basically offers the above (minus the allergy forecast), in a streamlined fashion. We agree with Brooks that the app could do a better job of highlighting the current conditions, because they otherwise blend in too well with the forecast conditions. While a small annoyance, it’s not a deal-breaker for us. The push-notifications to display the current temperature in a badge is a nice little feature, so when we’re out-and-about and already know the basic conditions, we can easily look at the temperature for reference without having to launch anything. There are no maps here, or fancy additional features, but we’ve found that we rarely look at those anyway to glean much useful information.

Like Arment, we’re not sure we’ll ever find the perfect weather app, because everyone wants different information highlighted¹. But we’re happy with Fahrenheit for now, even if it does mean that on rare occasion, we’ll jump over to some other app to get a bit more detailed info.

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