Climate affects whether we reside in a city or village, are commuting, or planning to travel abroad.
With each year passing, people worldwide rely on weather apps to schedule their day. Therefore the demand for weather apps is increasing for accessing accurate weather information.
There are many best apps available for weather forecasting. 1Weather app is also among one them. If you are inspired by the growing demand for weather forecasting apps and are considering creating an app like the 1Weather app, you are in the right place.
But first, let’s proceed by understanding the market potential of the weather forecast industry.
Latest Insights Of The Weather App Market
Source: GrandViewResearch
The global market size of the weather app was valued at $224.8M in 2021 and is expected to increase at a CAGR of 7.7% from 2022 to 2028.
The above statistics indicate that demand for weather forecasting will increase in the upcoming years.
What Is A 1Weather App?
A weather forecasting app that helps its users to get accurate weather information.
The app has many features, such as tracking temperature, wind speed, wind direction, precipitation, cloud coverage, humidity, UV index, visibility, dew point, and atmospheric pressure.
The app comes with useful weather forecasting-related widgets that users can access both from their Android & iOS smartphones.
Launched on | 4 May 2012 |
Available on | Android & iOS |
App downloads | 100M |
App rating | 4.5 |
Developed by | OneLouderApps |
Top Features Of 1Weather App
The 1Weather facilitates various app features to enable users to access digital weather forecasting. The features that make 1Weather the best app are as follows:
- Real-time weather forecasts for millions of locations around the world
- You can access detailed, hourly, and extended weather forecasts
- Lezak Recurring Cycle’s based 12-Week PRECISION CAST
- The app offers simple and easy-to-read weather graphs
- The app has weather alerts available for U.S locations
- LIVE animated radar
- Follow my location (Updated weather based on users’ new location)
- Multiple weather theme background
- Storing and providing access to multiple locations
- Enhanced cloud layer for international locations
- The users can share weather detail sharing via email and social media sites
- The app provides information about sunrise, sunset, cloud cover, wind speed, etc.
How 1Weather App Makes Money?
The 1Weather app monetizes its platform by showing ads to its users. For disabling ads, the app offers its premium version that has a different pricing structure for Android & iOS devices.
A one-time purchase price for Android devices costs around $1.99 for its pro version.
While for iOS devices, the 1Weather app costs around $9.99/year or $1.99/month and provides additional app features, such as Hourly or 48-hour forecast, Daily Forecast of 10 days, AQI Card (Check Air quality index), and Minutely Forecasts.
Required Tech Stack For Weather App Development
The recommended tech stack for weather app development is as follows:
Android | Java, Kotlin, Android Studio, Jetpack Compose, Android UI (template) |
iOS | Objective-C, Swift, XCode, AppCode, UIKit, SwiftUI |
Cross-platform | React Native(JS), Flutter(Dart), Xamarin(C#) |
Server | Amazon EC2, Amazon EKS / AWS Lambda |
Storage | Amazon S3 |
Database provider | Amazon RDS, Amazon DynamoDB |
Messaging queues | Amazon SQS |
Push notifications | Firebase notifications |
API server | Node.JS |
Weather API | Weather stack, Weatherbit, Accuweather, OpenWeatherMap |
How To Make A Fully Functional App Like 1Weather?
Here are the required steps to get started with app development.
1. Assemble your project planning team
Start by assembling a team of project managers (PM), an IT architect, and a team of business analysts to start developing your app like 1Weather.
You can outsource your project to suitable app developers to simplify your app creation journey.
2. Define the scope of the project
It is crucial to define your project scope to create an app. We recommend you build and implement features similar to 1Weather on your app.
When working with the right team, the team will hold discussions and stakeholders to gather business requirements for your project.
The team will decide on the required platform where you must launch your app to target a massive audience and get maximum returns on your project.
3. Identify the suitable methodology
We recommend creating a “Minimum Viable Product” (MVP) for your app where you can add the required and selective features to make your app fully functional and ready to launch.
Moreover, following the agile methodology will keep you updated with every stage and process of your app development.
Agile development will let you provide valuable feedback to your development team so they can make an effective change per your expectations and business requirements.
4. Follow app internationalization guidelines
We recommend supporting additional global languages to target other audiences besides English-speaking audiences. Your design and development should follow app internationalization guidelines, such as keeping your code separate from the content.
5. Adopt a practical development approach
Following a systematic app development approach will maximize the potential of getting the best returns from your team’s effort. When developing an app:
- Create an online marketing website with WordPress, the popular open-source content management system (CMS).
- Avoid managing IT infrastructure by using a managed cloud services platform.
- Build native Android and iOS mobile apps over hybrid apps for the most incredible user experience, security, and performance.
- Use software development kits (SDKs) and application programming interfaces (APIs) to speed up development.
- Use a cloud-based mobile device lab to test your app for various mobile devices.
6. Build the complete project team
To get complete support for your project, ensure your team has the following individuals:
- UI designers
- Android developers with Java skills
- iOS programmers with Objective-C skills
- Testers
- DevOps engineers
Proceeding with weather app development requires a good deal of coding and testing. Therefore you should hire a team of experts with experience in creating weather forecasting apps.
7. Organize the development team
Effective management of Agile projects can be done by organizing your team as a “Scrum team.”
The project manager performs the role of a “Scrum master” and builds cross-functional teams, enabling testers and developers to work together. Next, the product owner will facilitate business requirements named “Product Backlog.”
Now, the team will estimate the requirements and schedule them in “Sprints” using “Sprint Planning,” where they will hold daily stand-up meetings to discuss project status. The team will also try to learn new things through “Sprint retrospective meetings.”
8. Find the right WordPress theme
Give a professional look to your weather forecasting platform by selecting a suitable WordPress theme such as “Jevelin.” The theme is fully responsive that comes with drag and drop content editor.
You can implement the eCommerce feature using a WooCommerce plugin that is easy to configure and provides comprehensive documentation.
9. Sign-up for the appropriate managed cloud services
You can conserve time and manage the IT infrastructure by signing up with the right cloud service providers. We recommend using Amazon Lightsail, which offers secure and reliable WordPress hosting.
Additionally, we recommend using AWS Amplify, a Mobile Backend as a service (MBaaS) that offers the following advantages:
- Effective handling of storage, cloud infrastructure, etc.
- Implementing features like security, user management, and push notifications is easier by using Amplify, which can enable you to integrate 3rd party API with your code.
10. Find a mobile device lab on the cloud
Testing your app against popular operating systems, such as iOS and Android, is crucial. You can find cloud service providers that offer many mobile devices for testing.
We recommend using “pCloudly” as it offers over 5,000 device-browser combinations on the cloud.
11. Sign-up for a suitable weather data API solution
Integrate suitable weather data API for your app. We recommend registering with “OpenWeatherMap,” which offers many benefits, such as
- The weather API offers current data from over 200K cities that collect data from 40K weather stations, including data for weather data, weather maps, etc.
- The API offers hourly and daily forecasts for 16 days for any location or city.
- Weather data availability can be accessed in common formats like JSON, XML, etc.
- The API provides comprehensive documentation for all its APIs that you can access from its website.
12. Get an eCommerce API solution
You can easily implement in-app purchasing features by using an e-commerce API solution. We recommend integrating Shopify’s API solution into your weather app.
Shopify API solution can be integrated by accessing the API solution from the Shopify developer portal or by reading API guidelines from their official website.
13. Integrate payment gateway API solution
Your app users might want to upgrade to the premium version to access more features or to disable ads on your weather app. By integrating the in-app purchase feature, users can make payments straight from your app. We recommend using the “Braintree Direct” API solution to your app to enable your users to make payments.
14. Implement the “push notifications” feature
Consider adding bulk SMS API solution to allow your app to send push notifications on Android & iOS devices. We recommend using the “Twilio” SMS API solution for your weather app.
15. Designing the WordPress site and the mobile app UI
Having a user-friendly mobile app and a WordPress site for your weather platform is crucial.
You can ensure the user-friendliness of your platform by considering the following factors complying with the UI for the iOS platform with “Human Interface Guidelines” while “Material Design” for an Android app.
We recommend using the Jevelin theme for your WordPress site to have a user-friendly user interface.
16. Code, test, and publish your Android app
You can start android app development for the weather forecasting platform by using Java language for programming and Android Studio as a preferred IDE.
Also, you can integrate OpenWeatherMap, Twilio, Shopify APIs, and Braintree Direct into your app to extend platform features.
For app testing, we recommend using Espresso and following app publishing guidelines for your android app.
17. Developing the iOS app
Coding, testing, and publishing your iOS app will be the next step for app development. You can proceed with iOS app development by
- Using Xcode IDE
- Using Objective-C as a programming language
- Integrating APIs such as Braintree Direct, OpenWeatherMap, Shopify, and Twilio
- Using XCTest & pCloudly mobile device lab to test your app
The MVP for your weather app has been completely developed.
Are You Looking To Build 1Weather Similiar App?
The market for weather forecasting apps is growing. There is an excellent opportunity for you to make a significant profit by building a feature-rich weather forecasting app.
The process of app weather development involves complex tasks such as coding, testing, and review, giving a better reason to partner with a reputable app development company for such projects. You can read this guide to learn how to hire mobile app developers in 2023 for your project.
Partner with Idea Usher and leverage their expertise in your weather app development. Our team is experienced in app development across top demanding industries and can integrate the latest technologies such as IoT, blockchain, AI, etc.
Schedule a free call with our team to let us know about your business requirement and get started with your project.
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FAQ
Q. What is the 1Weather app used for?
A. The app is used for weather forecasting. Users can get information about temperature, humidity, and other factors to make climatic predictions in advance.
Q. How much does 1Weather cost?
A. The app comes in free and paid versions, where users can pay to disable ads at $1.99 as a one-time fee on Android.
While for iOS, its paid version, offers additional features that cost around $9.99/year or $1.99/month.
Q. What features should a weather app have?
A. You can add features including air quality reports, UV index readings, Real-time weather info and forecasting, Hourly and weekly forecasting with interactive maps, Sunset and sunrise time, Traffic conditions and visibility, Push notifications for any weather alerts, Support for the maximum number of devices, etc.
Q. Where does 1Weather get its data?
A. The app gets most of its data from the National Weather Service. It is a United States Federal government agency that provides weather forecasts and hazardous weather warnings to the public for safety and general information.
Q. What is required for a weather app project?
A. Weather app projects require complex tasks such as market research, app development, marketing, etc. However, outsourcing your project to an app development company can help you with your project.
The team comprises all the required professionals, from app developers to marketers, to help you with app development and other requirements such as app marketing, market research, app optimization, etc.