Editor’s note: This is the first in a series of spotlight blog posts where we will be highlighting the best of the mobile touch web.’a0 We’ll show you what’s hot on the mobile touch web and what makes that site exciting for your touch devices.
If you have a site you’d like to suggest, please email me at jason@taptu.com!
Today’s Spotlight Site: Weather Underground
There are a few information points that I constantly see people reach for their phones to attain.’a0 Sports, current news, and weather information are in these buckets.’a0 To this end, today’s mobile touch web spotlight is on WeatherUnderground.com
Weather Underground started out as a research project at the University of Michigan (that’s when I discovered it – as a Gopher site!).’a0 Now, Weather Underground is a great site for those looking for a quick forecast and also for weather geeks who want the scientific information behind the forecasts.
If you visit the site on your touch friendly device, be sure to select the “iPhone” version (available in the upper-right), even if you’re on a Nokia, iPod Touch, Android, or Palm device.’a0 Alternatively, you can visit i.wund.com to access the touch friendly version of Weather Underground.
The first impressive action is that Weather Underground can sense your location on iPhone and on Android (the two mobile browsers that support the HTML5 geolocation facility) and will automatically re-direct you to your local forecast.
The User Experience
At the top of the page, type in a location such as “Portland, Oregon” or “London, UK” – it can be any place in the world.’a0 Then, Weather Underground presents you with a 4-tabbed interface that shoots you to different important information points on the page including Current Stats/Readings, Radar, Forecast, and Warnings.
Even though the desktop web version of Weather Underground has an impressive array of statistics and forecast data, the mobile touch web version has been pared down perfectly for use cases that mobile web users need.
Kudos to the Weather Underground team.’a0 The mobile touch website shows the required information and combines this seemingly boring data with a user interface that allows for easy reference and navigation.
More screenshots are below:
