The Weather Channel Max for iPad allows you to get the latest weather forecasts delivered to your iPad through a gorgeous user interface.
The bigger brother of the Weather Channel app for iPhone, The Weather Channel Max for iPad provides in-depth weather reports, live map radars, and a huge collection of free videos from the The Weather Channel. It’s all presented in a stunning full-screen interface, with a beautiful start page that features a weather phenomenon. Navigating The Weather Channel Max for iPad app is done using icons at the bottom of the screen.
The Maps section of The Weather Channel Max for iPad allows you to get a near real time view of the weather over your area (or any area in the World, for that matter). Radar images are layered over the map and you can select to view the type of weather image you want to see, such as clouds, rain, temperature, UV, etc. It’s a lovely idea but unfortunately this feature is very poorly executed in The Weather Channel Max. The radar images take an age to load, if at all, and the pinch to zoom feature of the maps feels clunky and imprecise. It’s a shame because otherwise this would be a very useful tool.
Checking the forecast
Hit the Local icon in The Weather Channel Max for iPad and you’ll access the current forecast for your area. Again, this information is crystal clear at full screen resolution, displaying the conditions right now, for the next 36 hours and for the next 10 days. Underneath this information, The Weather Channel Max includes more relevant sections, which you can flick through with your finger.
The Weather Channel Max for iPad is rammed full of free videos from the channel. These aren’t just forecasts either, and you get clips about weather news, storm videos and full-length TV features. It looks nice, and videos can be viewed full screen, but again this is very buggy and sometimes the clips take forever to load.
The Social section of The Weather Channel Max for iPad is also worth checking out, providing the latest tweets from the people behind The Weather Channel.
A bright outlook?
The Weather Channel Max for iPad has the potential to be a must-have app. However, the execution of the application lets it down badly. Aside from the glitches I’ve already mentioned, the icons are very unresponsive to touch, and sometimes the app seems to have a mind of its own.
Surely these bugs will be ironed out over time, and once they are, The Weather Channel Max for iPad will be an indispensable tool to check the weather on your iPad.
