AccuWeather vs SPB Weather for Symbian 5th

One of the first widgets included with the N97 when it was released was AccuWeather’s. Then in December Symbian-Guru.com brought us news that SPB Weather was released as a replacement for AccuWeather. Is it really a replacement? In this article I will list the Pros and Cons for each application and you can decide for yourself.

AccuWeather

Pros	Cons
Free Homescreen widget with current conditions Future day forecasts Hourly forecasts Maps with zoom Precipitation graphs & calendar Easy to add locations by name or zip code Obtain conditions at current location with GPS (no need to add city)	Advertisements in app slow it down Very few map choices Very limited settings choices Cannot scroll through cities Homescreen widget color set to only black & will not change for 3rd party themes

SPB Weather

Pros	Cons
Multiple Days shown on homescreen widget Multi-day forecast Forecast given by morning, afternoon, & night View forecast by time of day for future days Scroll thru your cities to view conditions for each Updates can be scheduled by user Global view of weather conditions Layers available include clouds, sky, temperature and rain	15 day trial and $14.95 purchase price Gives forecasted conditions instead of current conditions on homescreen widget Does not give hourly forecast, only by time of day Difficult to add cities as you cannot view identifying info other than country Font on homescreen widget turns to black at refresh on 3rd party themes making info unviewable with dark wallpapers or backgrounds

I do have mixed thoughts about SPB in dealing with the issues I had with their homescreen widget. They were responsive when I reported the problem and I would make the changes and provide information as requested. Their responsiveness was great until my 15 day trial ended. Once I told them that the trial had ended and that I wasn’t going to pay for an app that didn’t work they disappeared. No offers for a free certificate to help them fix the problem? I cannot imagine I was the only one to experience this issue. As a part of writing this article, and as I have done a few hard resets and reformatted the  mass storage, I was able to downloaded the application again to get the screen captures . As you can see from the screen captures the issue hasn’t been addressed. Makes me wonder what their support would be like for future challenges.

My opinion as to which is better? With so many pros and cons with each app I need to look at what matters to me the most, and that is knowing the current conditions at my current location. Scrolling through cities is nice and it’s fun to play with the global maps in SPB’s application, but I don’t find those worth the $14.95, especially since the fonts disappear in third-party themes with dark backgrounds.

I’m sticking with AccuWeather. Which is the winner for you?

Download AccuWeather from Ovi Store here and SPB Weather here from SPB’s web site.

Read about my recent comparison between ForecaWeather and OMWeather for the N900 here.