MojiWeather: Weather Radar

First Impression

Mark wouldn’t stop talking about this weather app last Thursday at lunch. He said the radar was super clear, so I downloaded it right there. Opening it up, I liked it immediately. It wasn’t a mess of numbers and graphs. It just showed me the temperature, if it was sunny or rainy, and a simple forecast for the day. Everything was big and easy to read, which is exactly what I want when I’m half-awake checking if I need a jacket. It felt clean and, more importantly, fast. That first look made me think I’d finally found a weather app that just gets out of your way.

What It Does Well

The radar map is honestly the best part. I can pinch and zoom right onto my street. Last Saturday, I was about to take my dog, Buddy, for a long walk. I opened the map and saw a big green blob of rain was about ten minutes west of me. I waited it out with a coffee, and sure enough, it poured for twenty minutes and then cleared up. Perfect timing for our walk. The hourly forecast is also spot-on. I use it every morning to decide the best time to bike to work. It’ll say things like “rain ends by 8:45 AM,” and it’s usually right. I also stuck one of their widgets on my home screen. Now I just glance at my phone and see the current temp and condition without even opening the app. It just works for everyday stuff.

Where It Falls Short

It’s not all perfect, though. Sometimes the app feels a little slow to catch up. I’ll open it and it shows the temperature from an hour ago for a second or two before it refreshes. Not a huge deal, but it’s noticeable. My bigger gripe is with the ads. They said it was free, and it is, but the ads aren’t always at the bottom. Sometimes a full-screen ad pops up when you switch between screens, which is really annoying. It breaks the flow of using the app. I also wish the “feels like” temperature was more prominent. It’s tucked away, and on a windy or humid day, that’s the number I really care about.

Is It Worth the Price?

Well, it’s free, so you can’t really beat the price. For a no-cost weather app, it does a ton. The radar and the basic forecasts are completely free and they’re great. You just have to put up with the ads. They offer a premium version to remove the ads and get some extra map layers, but I haven’t felt the need to pay. The ads are irritating sometimes, but not irritating enough for me to open my wallet yet. If you’re like me and just want a reliable, easy-to-read forecast, the free version is totally fine.

Developer & Support

This is where I got a bit frustrated. I ran into a weird bug where the “chance of rain” percentage wouldn’t show up on the widget, just a blank space. I figured I’d contact support. I sent an email through the app. I got an auto-reply right away, which was fine. But then I didn’t hear anything for like, three days. When they finally replied, it was a pretty generic message asking me to restart my phone and re-add the widget—stuff I’d already tried. I wrote back and never got a second response. The widget started working again on its own after an app update, but the whole thing left me feeling like if I had a real problem, I’d be on my own.

Privacy & Safety

I got it from the normal App Store, so I wasn’t worried about viruses or anything. When you first open it, it asks for your location to give you the local forecast. That makes sense. I poked around in the settings and there’s a privacy policy you can read. It says it uses your location for the weather and collects some basic data about how you use the app, probably for the ads. It didn’t ask for access to my contacts or photos or anything weird. It seems about as safe as any other free app that needs to know where you are. I’m comfortable with it.