WeatherBug For Android G1 April Upgrade Available!

It’s that time again, faithful Android/G1 users. It is time to check for those updates for your favorite weather app - WeatherBug for the G1.

Just about everyone should have been prompted about the new update by now, but how many of you would like to know what has changed? Here is the skinny.

WeatherBug for the Android G1 –1.0.677 BETA (4/7/2009)

• Added update interval preferences for temperature and alert notification services.
• NEW PERMISSION OPTION: System Tools - prevent the phone from sleeping. Instead of running as background tasks, the temperature and alert notification services now run on an alarm so that the Android OS can properly sleep in between updates. This requires adding a wake lock to ensure the Android OS does not kill the service while it is trying to get its data (like telling you a tornado is on the way!). If a successful transmission of data has not occurred after 5 minutes, the service will die, letting the phone sleep again. This change will improve battery life.
• Enabled GPS fixes by default for better accuracy.
• Fixed cosmetic bug causing wind vane and temperature strings to intersect under certain conditions.
• Fixed a bug where changing Network/GPS preferences did not cause the application to immediately perform a location fix with new settings.
• optimized data loading routines for smoother operation.
• Fixed a bug where clicking on alert notifications did not always launch the application to the correct location.
• Fixed a bug where alerts were not always marked as viewed, causing them to reappear
• Added Hi/Lo temperatures to temperature notification.
• Clicking on the Temperature Notification now opens the application to the Current Conditions for that location.
• Fixed playing ring tones for the alert notification.

Further explanation on the GPS bug fix

In previous releases of the WeatherBug G1 app, the GPS fixes were disabled as it was believed that the phone’s battery might be taking a hit. It was later discovered what was actually taking place was that the WeatherBug architecture for updating the Temp and Alerts were causing the phone to not go into a proper sleep mode.

With this release, all of this has been addressed and everything is fully operational. This translates into fixes being implemented that mean that GPS location awareness has been re-enabled now.

What about iPhone users?

So you have an G1 and love the WeatherBug app, but your spouse has an iPhone? Is there an equal WeatherBug app for them? You bet there is! From your iPhone just goto the App Store, Search and query WeatherBug. Or from your iPhone, just browse to this link. Updates? There is a signicant update coming soon. But for the time being, go ahead and install the existing version so you can get a feel for it now without having to wait.