Introducing Acme Weather

From Introducing Acme Weather:

Fifteen years ago, we started work on the Dark Sky weather app. Over the years it went through numerous iterations — including more than one major redesign — as we worked our way through the process of learning what makes a great weather app. Eventually, in time, it was acquired by Apple, where the forecast and some core features were incorporated into Apple Weather. We enjoyed our time at Apple. So why did we leave to start another weather company? It’s simple: when looking at the landscape of the countless weather apps out there, many of them lovely, we found ourselves feeling unsatisfied. The more we spoke to friends and family, the more we heard that many of them did too. And, of course, we missed those days as a small scrappy shop. So let’s try this again…
Acme Weather App

This is a really great looking app from the developers of Dark Sky before they were acquired by Apple. It’s super glancebale, has great typography, and nearly perfect information density.

I’ll likely give it a shot to see if it can dethrone Carrot Weather, the gold standard in my opinion.

The only downside I see thus far is the icon. As long as there’s a decent home screen widget it’s not a dealbreaker, though.

Dot: The Menu Bar Calendar That’s Become My Main Calendar

From John Vorhees at MacStories:

So if you use a calendar app that doesn’t have a great menu bar app or live in your menu bar calendar more than your main calendar app like I do, give Dot a try. There’s a 14-day free trial, and at the moment, the app is just $9.99 during its launch window when you use the code LAUNCH, with an eventual planned price of $14.99.

I’ve used Dato for a while and am generally happy with it, but I really like the little UX wins Dot offers along with the insane amount of customization. I love apps like Fantastical but can’t see myself subscribing to a calendar app given my needs. Paying one-time for this type of thing is more my speed.

A Good, Not Great Smart Playlist

I’ve been using Apple Music and previously iTunes for the bulk of the past 25 or so years of the digital music era and the thing that keeps bringing me back is the more album-centric way the app works along with things like Smart Playlists. Today I thought I’d share a playlist I created recently […]

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Overcast Update: Mostly Great™

Big news in Apple podcast land. A new version of Overcast, my favorite Podcast app (and one of my most used apps), was released this week. Marco Arment, the app’s developer, wrote more about it this week on his site. It’s a multi-year rewrite to modernize the now 10-year-old platform, and it will allow him […]

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Using Day One to Scratch my Timehop Itch

Over the past few years I’ve tried to curtail my use of social media. I’ve unfollowed a ton of accounts on Instagram and Twitter, deleted my Facebook account, and mostly lurk in general. I’ve also deleted all of my old posts – I know that stuff is still searchable for Twitter if you are so […]

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Which Apple apps or services are truly great?

I was recently reading this article about how Apple’s services are often creaky, slow and feel half assed and it got me thinking: for any given app or service, what is the best in breed for that area? I’ll skip some smaller utilities and such, and focus more on the core apps and services. Apple […]

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