Unhappy with the update
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I’ve really enjoyed using windy and have for years now as a professional pilot alongside several other planning resources. Windy shares a lot of very useful data that isn’t presented as intuitively from other providers. I’ve even sold my dad on the product!
I was surprised that it was free for the level of quality and was ready to buy the premium membership. As of now, I’m disappointed that the team has felt the need to make such sweeping changes that reduce the user experience with seemingly little consideration for their user base. The recent update has made the mobile application very clunky to use, messy in its appearance and unfortunately, may no longer suit my needs because of this.
The fixed weather picker is counterintuitive and makes comparing weather across large areas difficult. The crosshairs is hidden behind the layer menu, making winds aloft hard to comprehend. I can’t compare winds in Cheyanne to those in Helena with changes in time and altitude. This now requires several clicks and requires my full attention.
Selecting a city and having the map center to that location is disorientating where the old cursor’s mobility didn’t present that problem.
Having the simple Daily Forecast right on top of the 3-hour forecast is a redundant waste of very valuable space.
Moving the information to the top of the screen and away from the crosshairs takes your attention back and forth between ‘move the map-go check the data-move the map-go check data.’
Sometimes if the map is moved again before the data can load, it’ll skip back to the previous location. If you’ve used a touch screen before; you know that large, accurate moves are nearly impossible.Having a map available without the cursor was nice, waiting for the cursor to go away every time I adjust the map complicates the UI.
The old UI’s layer list was simple and organized while the new format requires scanning through the grid to find the right layer-expand the layers list-scan the grid some more. Often my use case involves cross-checking 2-3 layers while comparing to other apps and onboard data. Windy now commands my nearly full attention as I navigate the app.
Restricting window management to the “X” icon is unintuitive as the icon moves around depending on the window and sometimes doesn’t click if I can’t hit it exactly. I waste time looking for the X and man-handling my iPad, chasing it around the UI. Tapping the map to close a menu was an easier, more natural motion.
A helpful tool for me would be information for thunderstorm cell tops and cell movement prediction based on live radar/satellite data.
I’m disappointed that a majority of Administrator @Ondřej-Šutera ‘s responses are in the attitude of “This is great and you just need to learn how it works”
“Show me, you don’t know what you’re talking about”
Most people don’t appreciate being talked down-to and discredited.
This seems to be the only response on the part of the Windy Team. Some others have shown frustration with this as well. Please don’t approach my feedback the same way.Keep in mind, these are only my personal complaints, based on my specific use case. Others have presented very good criticisms based on theirs. We’ve all chose Windy because of how well it worked for what we needed. Nobody’s here because Windy didn’t work for them.
It appears Windy wants to market itself as a semi-professional tool, and is treated as such by myself and many others. Despite the intent, this update is a step in the opposite direction.
I won’t continue using Windy in its current form and I don’t see a reason to pay for it as such. I’ll be searching for a competitor if the team shows that this is the direction it will be moving in the future while openly alienating their most loyal users. -
@jflood
It is important to say that your remarks concern the new UI for iPad. Now iPad uses the same interface as the phone, when previously it was closer to the browser version. So it’s a big step backward for this device that I use mainly too. -
Hi @jflood, thank you for your extensive feedback about using our new version of our app. I don't want to tell you in general that you need to get used to this new interface, when changes, especially, on iPad devices were massive, since iPads used to have the desktop version and now they have mobile one.
We will discuss possibilities with colleagues from the product team about any potential changes, since we are aware of massive interest in older version. However, at this moment, I cannot promise any specific changes.
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@jflood said in Unhappy with the update:
I’ve really enjoyed using windy and have for years now as a professional pilot alongside several other planning resources. Windy shares a lot of very useful data that isn’t presented as intuitively from other providers. I’ve even sold my dad on the product!
I was surprised that it was free for the level of quality and was ready to buy the premium membership. As of now, I’m disappointed that the team has felt the need to make such sweeping changes that reduce the user experience with seemingly little consideration for their user base. The recent update has made the mobile application very clunky to use, messy in its appearance and unfortunately, may no longer suit my needs because of this.
The fixed weather picker is counterintuitive and makes comparing weather across large areas difficult. The crosshairs is hidden behind the layer menu, making winds aloft hard to comprehend. I can’t compare winds in Cheyanne to those in Helena with changes in time and altitude. This now requires several clicks and requires my full attention.
Selecting a city and having the map center to that location is disorientating where the old cursor’s mobility didn’t present that problem.
Having the simple Daily Forecast right on top of the 3-hour forecast is a redundant waste of very valuable space.
Moving the information to the top of the screen and away from the crosshairs takes your attention back and forth between ‘move the map-go check the data-move the map-go check data.’
Sometimes if the map is moved again before the data can load, it’ll skip back to the previous location. If you’ve used a touch screen before; you know that large, accurate moves are nearly impossible.Having a map available without the cursor was nice, waiting for the cursor to go away every time I adjust the map complicates the UI.
The old UI’s layer list was simple and organized while the new format requires scanning through the grid to find the right layer-expand the layers list-scan the grid some more. Often my use case involves cross-checking 2-3 layers while comparing to other apps and onboard data. Windy now commands my nearly full attention as I navigate the app.
Restricting window management to the “X” icon is unintuitive as the icon moves around depending on the window and sometimes doesn’t click if I can’t hit it exactly. I waste time looking for the X and man-handling my iPad, chasing it around the UI. Tapping the map to close a menu was an easier, more natural motion.
A helpful tool for me would be information for thunderstorm cell tops and cell movement prediction based on live radar/satellite data.
I’m disappointed that a majority of Administrator @Ondřej-Šutera ‘s responses are in the attitude of “This is great and you just need to learn how it works”
“Show me, you don’t know what you’re talking about”
Most people don’t appreciate being talked down-to and discredited.
This seems to be the only response on the part of the Windy Team. Some others have shown frustration with this as well. Please don’t approach my feedback the same way.Keep in mind, these are only my personal complaints, based on my specific use case. Others have presented very good criticisms based on theirs. We’ve all chose Windy because of how well it worked for what we needed. Nobody’s here because Windy didn’t work for them.
It appears Windy wants to market itself as a semi-professional tool, and is treated as such by myself and many others. Despite the intent, this update is a step in the opposite direction.
I won’t continue using Windy in its current form and I don’t see a reason to pay for it as such. I’ll be searching for a competitor if the team shows that this is the direction it will be moving in the future while openly alienating their most loyal users. -
@jflood I couldn't agree more. I'm also a pilot and agree wholeheartedly.
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@idefix37 said in Unhappy with the update:
Now iPad uses the same interface as the phone, when previously it was closer to the browser version.
Thank you for clarifying this. I have auto updates turned off for apps on my iPhone since so many developers are making their apps less user friendly. The update to the iPad UI came as a bit of a shock since my iPhone still shows the old Desktop-style UI.
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@Ondřej-Šutera The updated app has a problem in Android. The date slider for the forecast hour dissapears when I change from ECMWF to another model. This is with rain /thunder selected, .all that shows at the bottom of the screen is the rainfall key scale. If I call up a forecast location the date
slider comes back. -
@IPDB Can you provide a further details about the issue? I tried to replicate it on my device but everything works well.
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For me the biggest issue is the Widgets are totally broken on my Pixel 7. There are many people complaining about this in the newest 1 star reviews on the Google Play.
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@Ondřej-Šutera I am just curious if you guys did user-testing with the new UI? Because judging by the people in this forum, many are unhappy with the changes. So I am sure if you did user-testing people would've brought these concerns up.
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@Rares we standardly release Beta version for certain number of our users as well as we test all versions of apps. Unfortunately, Android has that many devices on the market, that we cannot cover all tests on all devices with this system.
According to these widgets, did you try to completely reset them after the last update with these instructions?
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@Ondřej-Šutera I fully reinstalled it seems to work
EDIT: It stopped working for the RADAR, "permanent" Updating Windy notification like before...
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I also dislike new update, less intuitive for me, I need to do extra steps to click pin icon.
Also moving map, this cross on the middle is too bug, and really unnecessary.
There is still old version on browser which is much better for me.
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@jflood Another professional pilot here; this update is crap. Agree with all your points.
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@jflood I've noticed the same thing, not just with this product, but most products on the market today. There's a trend in the IT field to continually update products to make them less user friendly and in so many cases, helpful features are also removed.
I'm personally fed up with it. It doesn't matter what you purchase, let them continually tweak enough and it's going to change for the worse. I also turn "automatic updates" off when I can.
I often wonder if the managers who allow these changes actually use the products themselves?
I also preferred the original interface. I measure software user efficiency by the number of required user actions executed for a specific function. Less is always better for the user. Menu/Desired function is always the most efficient.
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Just today I read your post. It describes all the issues in perfection. I also wrote several rather detailed posts over the last weeks, complaining about more or less the same things. To me the major issues are location picker and auto-zoom. But also the layer-list is problematic.
I really, really hope, that all of our well articulated responses to the new version are somehow heard at Windy. Windy-team, please accept, that the new version has failed! Your paying users do not comply with the view of the Windy team, that the new UI gives a better user experience. The opposite is the case.
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@Rickpp
Well said! -
@Rickpp Yes good points, well put. I've also been a long-time user of meteoblue, and I like some of the ways they present their maps compared to Windy. It's often been nice to have access to both.
Sadly, I see the company that owns Windy has bought a majority stake in meteoblue as well. Great - I guess we can look forward to Windy nerfing that over time, too, and making a good product worse because they can't accept not messing with something that isn't broken...
