The Weather Channel has been working hard to improve its mobile experience, with a new iPad app, a revamped iPhone app, and now a brand new Windows Phone app for Lumia devices. The WP app for Lumia will have features exclusive to Lumia owners for the next three to six months, at which point the same features will be ported over to the old Windows Phone app, available to all.
Along with support for seven languages, the app will offer improved alert functionality and a new augmented reality feature. The Augmented reality feature allows you to check out the weather through your camera using photos submitted by users in your area. So, for example, if you pointed your phone’s camera at the Empire State Building, and someone had just posted a photo of it in the rain, your screen would show that user’s photo and the accompanying weather in your display.
The app also provides channels for you to chat with friends about weather in your or their area. But perhaps the most important social feature is Weather Alerts for your friends, alerting you if any of your friends or family are under a sever weather threat.
Lumia users will also get a bit better at planning out their lives thanks to the “My Amazing Day” feature on the new app. Users will be able to specify weather conditions for certain activities (between 70 and 80 degrees, low pollen for a picnic in the park, or rainy and cold for a day spent reading indoors). The TWC app will then notify you ten days out that Tuesday looks like the perfect day for your picnic, or that Saturday’s conditions will be perfect for your planned reading day.
In a few months, all Windows Phone users will have access to the new language support, along with the ability to add live tiles with weather-triggered backgrounds to the phone’s homescreen. Users will also be able to track their favorite weather moments by checking out TWC’s gallery of user-generated photos, or upload their own photos.
But for now, loyal Nokia users will be the only lucky cool kids with access to TWC’s new WP app.
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