Show HN: My little project, (us-only) Weather for Smartphones

sjs382 · on March 17, 2011

It's my first mobile web project. I know a thousand weather apps already exist, but my girlfriend couldn't find one that showed moon phases too. So, instantwx.com was born for her and as an excuse to learn HTML5 geolocation. :)

It was created for Android. I haven't been able to test it for iPhone.

Oh, and it was made with Geolocation in mind, too. Need to figure out a better way to discover searched locations. It currently fails on "NYC". Needs to have "City, ST" in that format

there · on March 17, 2011

looks pretty, but why not use ip geolocation by default, and use browser-based geolocation for a more specific answer (only if it doesn't come back as the same city name)? that way you can show something while the browser geolocation is taking place (it can take a few seconds on some browsers).

sjs382 · on March 17, 2011

This brings up some weird UX issues. How do you propose this is done?

Front Page -> IP Location -> (if different) Browser location?

there · on March 17, 2011

ip geolocate on the server-side before the initial page loads, so you can show them the weather for where you think they are. it will give them something to look at while the client-side geolocation is happening (which can take a few seconds).

when the client-side geolocation returns and gets a different city name, maybe just do some fancy javascript animation to just overlay the changed parts that you got through ajax.

the ip geolocation will probably not be far off from what the client-side gps/cell location says, so the weather will probably not be much different, either. so when you swap out the updated info, it may just change the temp numbers by one or two degrees.

sjs382 · on March 17, 2011

Yeah, I think I'm going to set that up in a bit. Thanks for the feedback.

there · on March 17, 2011

also consider making a 32x32 icon for it (the apple-touch-icon.png; android uses it too) so if users add it as a bookmark on their home screen, it shows up with something unique instead of a page overview (or the red bookmark icon on android).

also, you may want to make the <title> short so the default text for the icon is what you want.

just some tips from my experience running http://goingtorain.com/

sjs382 · on March 17, 2011

Ah, I forgot about the icon. Thanks a ton for the reminder. I need to get better about keeping a to-do list.