I’m going to start a new little category for my Android thoughts.  I got started pretty early on with Android, and wound up on the back of a book for it, so maybe I know something? (hint: not that much, but some).

I start with something light.  I need a new weather app.  I’ve been using the weather channel’s, and its been steadily getting on my nerves.  today was the final straw.

First off, it takes over 2 megs.  2 megs?  For what?  It has to re-load the data when you turn it on.  Graphics?  Come on, chubby!  We have a fixed memory on the G1!  2 megs is HUGE.

It does a crappy job with locations.  It used to be terrible.  You’d turn it on, and it would occasionally forget where you were.  It would pick on of your other locations, seemingly at random.  To pick one, you had to click “Add New”, then it would list the ones you’ve already set up.  Terrible UI design.  The “Add New” part is still true.  The recent change, though?  You can select a home location.  Great!  One problem.  It will keep a little notification icon up at all times once you’ve done that.  Fail.

However, that’s all secondary.  This morning it said something about sporadic showers, but had a sun with clouds icon.  No rain.  Just random showers.  So, I didn’t bring my umbrella.  Surprise.  It poured all day.  All day.  Weather channel, you need to do one thing right.  you can mess up the UI, or the location saving, and be huge and fat, but you NEED to get the weather right.  Granted, the text mentioned something about sporadic rain, but it was seriously raining all day.

Trying accuweather.com again.  Maybe some luck there…

*Update* Installed accuweather.  Good news?  Says rain, and its raining.  Bad news?  2.6 megs.  what’s up with the fat apps?

*Update 2* Weather bug.  Its got the data right, and its under 1 meg.  However, one of the ads looks like it was for porn (which I’m OK with, but that seems a little odd).  I think weather bug wins!