Like most Brits we’re more than a bit obsessed with all things weather-related, so as soon as we bought a Palm Treo we were busily installing a host of weather-related applications, including Treo Alarm.
We thought that combo had left us most with isobaric bases covered until we came across the uncrowned Big Daddy of weather apps, the superb Tréociel.
This puppy positively assails you with weather info, serving up max and min temperatures, precipitation probabilities, weather forecast icons and wind speed and direction.
Of course, all that data’s a fat load of good if you can’t make head or tail of it, but here’s where the Tréociel really excels, presenting weather forecasts in a series of clear, easy-to-read scrollable charts.
Setting it all up
Before you start, you need to input which cities you want to monitor, and this can be done by typing in the city name, weather station ID or search.
Once located, the program prompts you to decide whether you want to track hourly or daily weather data, with a click on the ‘update’ button downloading the latest information off the internet (unfortunately, there’s no auto-update facility yet).
Reading the charts
Downloaded ten-day weather information is shown on a horizontally scrolling graph which can be set up with customised views.
By default, Tréociel will show min/max temperature, weather icons, wind speed and precipitation information, with the option to define three custom views.
Wind speeds can be shown in km/h, mph, m/s, knots or in the trusty old Beaufort Scale, with the choice to select temperature readouts in Celsius or old school Fahrenheit.
Graphs can display hourly or daily forecasts, with the scrollable graph making it easy to track weather trends.
Conclusion
We loved Tréociel, with the program’s novel and easy to read interface tempting us into wasting endless time checking out the weather in different cities around the world, as well as looking up the local forecast.
The internet updates meant we knew when to pack an umbrella before leavng the office and if anyone made the mistake of striking up a conversation about the weather, we had Tréociel on hand to bore them utterly senseless.
At just €9.95 the program represents great value to our eyes and looks to be an essential purchase for travellers and meteorological mullers.
Currently optimised for the Palm Treo only, owners of non Palm smartphones should be able to join in the fun soon with the authors promising versions for “Windows Mobile and other platforms” in the future.
Features: 80%
Ease of use: 85%
Value For Money: 90%
Overall: 90%