iOS Weather APIs?

[ArtOfWarfare]

I'd like to take a crack at making a weather app. I'd like it to be able to do some sub-day forecasts as well as day forecasts out for a few days, and I'd also like to be able to get daily or weekly history over the past year.

I want precipitation amounts and temperatures. Cloud coverage, humidity, wind, and precipitation chance would also be good, but isn't too important to me.

I'd like this to be inexpensive…

What Weather APIs are you guys familiar with and what would you recommend?

I looked into:

wunderground
World Weather Online
Open Weather Map

Right now I'm leaning towards Open Weather Map because it appears to offer all of the data I want for free. The only catch is they say their server only has 95% uptime at the free tier, but I figure that if I cache properly, my users wouldn't be impacted by it too much.

Has anyone else used this or any other weather APIs before? What are your thoughts on them? What do I need to be aware of?

 

[RagingGoat]

I'm currently using World Weather Online and it gives me all the info I need in my app. I'm currently getting the current day temp, conditions, humidity, high, low, wind speed, wind direction, and precipitation. I'm also showing the following four days high, low, and precipitation. It has been working well for me.

 

[ArtOfWarfare]

I'm currently using World Weather Online and it gives me all the info I need in my app. I'm currently getting the current day temp, conditions, humidity, high, low, wind speed, wind direction, and precipitation. I'm also showing the following four days high, low, and precipitation. It has been working well for me.

That looks quite expensive. I've been experimenting with Open Weather Map and, while it doesn't offer as fine tuned forecasts as Id like (it only goes down to 3 hours, whereas I'd like an hour or less), it's looking really hard to justify using any other service when this one is free.

The documentation is quite lacking, but I think I've figured out enough on my own through experimentation to do everything I want.

 

[RagingGoat]

That looks quite expensive.

It's actually free.

 

[ArtOfWarfare]

It's actually free.

I wanted more than they offer in their free tier... And actually, their cheapest non-free tier still isn't good enough and it's more expensive than Open Weather Map's most expensive tier (you can buy better server uptime from them... Which now that I think of it, doesn't that defy net neutrality?)

 

[RagingGoat]

They do charge for more data. I was just saying that their free tier provides everything I need.

 

[ArtOfWarfare]

They do charge for more data. I was just saying that their free tier provides everything I need.

They charge for features. IE, no hourly forecasts without paying them. No history without paying. No extended forecast without paying.

Open Weather Maps offers all of that for free. Upgrading from free changes their server uptime from 95% to 99%, then to 99.5% and then 99.95%. The only actual feature you get other than better uptime is extended history (from one month for free to all of the history they have at their top tier, and in between for others.)

I'm not saying what you found wasn't good enough for you for free, obviously it was. I'm just blown away at how much Open Weather Maps offers for free.

Oh, 40 M requests / day for free, too. Did I leave that off before? (The top tier is 80 M requests / day.) I don't think other services even let you get that many requests at any tier.

I'm also tinkering with Open Street Maps (also free) to find locations with natural expressions.

 

[RagingGoat]

I may need to look at switching.