Weather location is not accurate

[klamson]

I'm currently in Rancho Mirage, CA - but the local location that appears is anywhere from Cathedral City (not far) to Temecula (far).  I've installed the update and it still doesn't work.

[Wildman]

Do you have the GPS on or just the assistedGPS because the AssistedGPS uses cell towers to trianglate your location which can put you anywhere...  Try tuning on GPS reciever and see what happens.

[demmo86rt]

Also, if you have your WiFi on, that can be used for location services as well.  This can be much more accurate (when I'm at home, it shows my location as my actual address ) but I've also heard of it throwing locations off, because, if you are within range of a WiFi signal (you don't have to be connected) and that person has recently moved, but is still using the same equipment, it may translate to their former address.

[stormyeyes16]

could be worse.. twice now the my weather services (both weather channel and the one that comes on the phone..) have place me in Bogota, Columbia... while I'm actually in Las Vegas... its super weird.. anyone have suggestions on that one? 

[parkernathan]

Who's providing the weather for your cell phone? If it's WeatherBug I might be able to help. I work for WeatherBug.

[droidsw]

parkernathan, you really work for WeatherBug? Just curious, was there an outage in North Texas (Dallas area) yesterday? We had severe weather and I could not get the radar to display the rain (clouds). The Weather Channel app worked fine. Today, discussing the weather with a friend who has an EVO 4G (who installed WeatherBug at my suggestion) also said WeatherBug wasn't displaying radar during yesterday's storm on his phone, either.

[parkernathan]

We had a radar outage yesterday that affected our in-house custom GIS radar system which pretty much went down across the board, mobile, desktop, and even our professional-level StreamerRT. It took out the radar mosaic and caused it to be glitchy at times. So that's what happened there. On my iPhone, I keep a copy of a Single-Site NEXRAD viewer (I use RadarScope) that I fall back on if the mosaic goes down. It's usually pretty reliable, but we've had a couple glitches with it since switching over. An app with a Single-Site NEXRAD viewer should do the trick for you if/when you need a backup.

[droidsw]

Thanks for the explanation. I thought for a second I was reading something written by the Professor on Gilligan's Island though (with all due respect). Wow. Thanks.

[parkernathan]

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droidsw wrote:
Thanks for the explanation. I thought for a second I was reading something written by the Professor on Gilligan's Island though (with all due respect). Wow. Thanks.

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Hee hee! I get that a lot. I can get pretty technical in my explanations. 

[PJNC284]

I have gingerbread and it's awesome. O-)

[droidsw]

PJNC284, I'd imagine gb is excellent, but in the Droid X section, speculation about it has been a little overdone, to put it in an understated way......

[Ann154]

While I have not had any problems with my location with the Thunderbolt, I have to say that Weatherbug's UI is much nicer than The Weather Channel application. I can actually see and read all the information in both portrait and landscape mode. Can't say the same thing for The Weather Channel application in landscape mode.

[droidsw]

ann154, those little icons that scroll across the bottom of the Weather Channel app are maddening. Can they make them any smaller or any more sensitive? It's like trying to catch a fish with a toothpick. WeatherBug much more user friendly.

[parkernathan]

Glad you like WeatherBug for your Mobile Phone! Makes us feel great to hear such good feedback!

[Ann154]

I agree with you there droidsw. Add having the icons within an arc, plus the arc on the upper portion of the Weather Channel application. It makes me want to pull my hair out. Both of the arcs reduced the scrolling area down so much that portrait view is barely usable on my 3.2" screen Droid Eris. Forget about using it in landscape. I even tried on the Thunderbolt. It wasn't worth keeping on the phone. If I had access to the old UI of the Weather Channel application, I would use it. That version was usable and worked well. Do their developers not test these things?

[droidsw]

The last time I updated the WC app, the icons moved from the arc on the top to the bottom. At the top was bad, now it's a sanity check. I emailed them and told them I don't like playing a slot machine with their rapidly spinning icons trying to land on the right one just to get the radar.........

[droidsw]

And, I could discuss weather apps all day. However, anyone starts ONE more bleeping thread about gingerbread and they can lock me up in a padded room with the Weather Channel app and I will mumble and talk to myself until the meds kick in.

[Ann154]

@parkernathan
There is one thing that puzzles me about Weatherbug's application. Where is the screen / information about the current weather conditions. I can find the current temperature and wind direction, but nothing that tells me if it is sunny, rainy, snowing outside. The closest thing I can find seems to be the forecast only. That is the one thing I miss from the The Weather Channel application.

[parkernathan]

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Ann154 wrote:
@parkernathan
There is one thing that puzzles me about Weatherbug's application. Where is the screen / information about the current weather conditions. I can find the current temperature and wind direction, but nothing that tells me if it is sunny, rainy, snowing outside. The closest thing I can find seems to be the forecast only. That is the one thing I miss from the The Weather Channel application.

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What would you like to see? Basically a conditions icon that tells if it's rainy, sunny, etc., at your location? I could put in a request for it and see what we could do. Our meteorologists might be able to come up with this sort of thing. I don't believe our stations automate it.

[parkernathan]

Then again, I have seen us offer this in browser plugins, etc., so it probably wouldn't be hard to pull off.

[Ann154 · Accepted solution]

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parkernathan wrote:

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Ann154 wrote:
@parkernathan
There is one thing that puzzles me about Weatherbug's application. Where is the screen / information about the current weather conditions. I can find the current temperature and wind direction, but nothing that tells me if it is sunny, rainy, snowing outside. The closest thing I can find seems to be the forecast only. That is the one thing I miss from the The Weather Channel application.

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What would you like to see? Basically a conditions icon that tells if it's rainy, sunny, etc., at your location? I could put in a request for it and see what we could do. Our meteorologists might be able to come up with this sort of thing. I don't believe our stations automate it.

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I think I finally found the current conditions, but it is tiny. I would also like some words (Partly cloudy, sunny, t-storms, etc) with it.  The same words that are displayed when you look at the information in the notifications window or the list of location.

Here is a rough markup.

For kicks and giggles, here what three weather apps look like on a 3.2" screen in landscape mode.

Weatherbug

The current verison of the Weather Channel app. When you compare the amount of visible information to the image below this one, this UI is not user friendly.

The Dish Network weather app (provided by the Weather Channel and uses the old UI of the The Weather Channel app)