I use windy since years, it used to be the best wind app available. It had a focused, clean design with quick access to all relevant information.

Now I just returned from a months-long sailing trip and can't stop congratulating myself, that just now I upgraded windy and did not do this while being underway. It would probably have led to an instant heart attack, being betrayed of a relevant planning tool...

Your new "upgraded" version of windy is terrible. Why on earth did you do this?

My feedback:

Terrible new crosshair / location picker. Simply: Why? Somewhere one of your guys wrote, that before it "was difficult to select a specific location on the screen". Not true, I did this for years without any issue. I want to be able to zoom to a specific region and then tap on different locations to see the specific forecast for those locations. Before the update this was easily possible. I DO NOT want to be forced to move the map to see the forecast for a different location. I DO NOT want the map to auto-scroll, when I select a new location via "forecast for this location".

Terrible new layer list. Why show some meaningless "colorful thumbnails" that require lots of screen space instead of a compact, informative list of available layers as before?

Your UX designers / developers ruined the user experience that was perfect before. As it is now, its a huge downgrade in user experience. I seriously consider to downgrade to the previous version.

PLEASE provide a LEGACY mode for the location picker. If the picker is not fixed or a legacy mode becomes available, I will not longer will pay for your app.

I use windy since years, it was the best wind app available.

Now a terrible update indeed:

Terrible new crosshair / location picker. I want to be able to zoom to a specific region and then tap on different locations to see the specific forecast for those locations. Before the update this was easily possible. I DO NOT want to be forced to move the map to see the forecast for a different location. I DO NOT want the map to auto-scroll, when I select a new location via "forecast for this location".

Stupid new layer list. Why show "some colorful thumbnails" that require lots of screen space instead of a compact, informative list of available layers as before.

You developers ruined the user experience that was perfect before. I seriously consider to downgrade to the previous version.

PLEASE provide a legacy mode for the location picker. As it is now, its a huge downgrade in user experience.

@Koss5 @acummings

Have you secretly read my mind?

I full agree with your complaints.

Windy is an app that should be meant to transport a lot of information as efficient as possible. With efficient I mean, the user experience needs to be such that the user needs as little as possible interaction to change the visualized data, location, etc.

Two years ago they decided that now the location is selected by moving the map. One of the worst decisions ever for Windy. Before is was an intuitive tap with one finger.

Then they decided that instead of a clear list of data-options, some random colorful thumbnails are "better" for the user to select data. Back then there was a huge outcry here in the forum to go back to the previous solution (plain list). They seemed to simply ignore that.

And right now, they decided to change model selection to a menu, that requires three clicks to achieve exactly the same what was possible before with one click.

At the same time, when changing to wind-mode, the data on the map changes automatically from the model I selected before to ECMWF.

In german we say, it is a "Trauerspiel", when you watch how someone deliberately ruins a formerly nice thing.

It is a huge miracle to me, what the UX-designers at Windy think. As someone, who uses Windy as a paying user since now about five years (sailing), I fundamentally can not understand why they do these things. I would fire the UX-designers as well, I guess...;)

But seriously, lets hope that one day they come to reason.

@Suty

@Ondřej-Šutera Hi Ondrej, thank you for the clarification!

Can you give some indication, how you at Windy see the critical comments of the users with regards to location picker and layer list? Can you at Windy understand/follow our concerns and complaints? Will there be a modification that allows to use the location picker in a way similar as before?

To further elaborate on location picker and layer list:
In my opinion the new "thumbnail list" for the layer selection could eventually be accepted. Although I do not understand the motivation to go from the old style to the new thumbnail-like list. Apart from having larger tiles to tap to select a layer (was this probably the original motivation?), the thumbnails show some (in my opinion) arbitrary colorful picture. To select the right layer one has to read the text anyways. So, what's the point with the thumbnails? In my opinion the only eat up space on the screen.

The issue with the new location picker is at a totally different and critical level in my opinion. The new interaction process completely brakes the user experience. For myself I would rate the new location picker as catastrophically wrong. It is not possible anymore to tap different positions on the map in a controlled way while keeping the same region of the map on the screen (this is important for route planning for e.g. sailing!). Either one has to move the map or one taps somewhere on the map, but then the map somehow autoscrolls and shows a different map region (...omg...!!!). From a developers perspective this might seem swift and nice that the map somehow autoscrolls. For me as a user this lets me loose focus while carefully studying the weather development for a certain region during which I need to select different locations and need to stay focused on that specific region. Autoscrolling is a no go!
Also, before selecting a certain location was a single tap. Now, I either arbitrarily move the map (bad) or I have to interact with the weather popup bar at the top of the screen to select "forecast for this location", but then autoscrolling... Before it was a single, efficient tap...

It would honestly be interesting what the actual reasons and design goals where for this new version. In my opinion (and reading the comments of many, many other users I'm obviously not alone), the user experience was very good before. No need to try to "invent the wheel again" and completely break the user experience.

Again: PLEASE provide a way to interact with the map and to select a location of interest in a way that follows to old approach.

Looking forward to our feedback, thank you and best regards.

Dear Ondrej, Dear Product Team,

thank you @Ondřej-Šutera for your response in another thread here. I understood, that there will be no general roll-back to the old version. That is understandable in some respect.

Still, please do not forget the concerns of us, your customers. I agree with you, that probably some complaints are just because "something has changed". But other complaints are substantial in my opinion, e.g. the issue with retrieving weather for a specific location.

My major concern is about the "user path" or "user journey" from starting the app to comparing wind predictions for different locations. This is very inefficient at the moment and prevents to efficiently study the weather forecast for a larger region.

Before ("old" app):

• Open the app
• Zoom & pan to relevant region
• Tap on the screen somewhere -> a dot and a "flag" with the local weather appears at that location
• Tap on the flag -> the time-line with the local weather appears at the lower screen
• Tap on "wind" -> wind predictions of all models are shown

If I now want another location (old app):

• Tap on different location -> wind predictions of all models are shown for this new location, map stays as it is
• Tap on different location -> wind predictions of all models are shown for this new location, map stays as it is
• and so on ...

Current version of app:

• Open the app
• Zoom & pan to relevant region, target location of interest with cross-hair
• Tap on "forecast for this location" -> the time-line with the local weather appears at the lower screen (when doing this at low zoom levels (overview), the map is automatically zoomed to some high (detailed) zoom level)
• Tap on "display as" -> selection menu "Basic, Waves, Wind, ..." opens
• Select "wind" -> wind predictions of all models are shown

If I now want another location (new app):

• Tap on "X" to actively close prediction time-line
• Zoom & pan to new relevant region, target location of interest with cross-hair
• Tap on "forecast for this location" -> the time-line with the local weather appears at the lower screen (when doing this at low zoom levels (overview), the map is automatically zoomed to some high (detailed) zoom level)
  (- Do this again for each new location...)
  Edit & Correction: The "move map" option solves this to some degree, still an issue, since the user is forced to move map, also auto-zoom issue persists.

So, where before changing location was a single tap on the location of interest (same map view), I now need to navigate to a new position (which means to move the map) to get the forecast there.

Probably this might sound as if this is no big deal. But during sailing the app is used several times a day to study the development of wether predictions for a specific region, which involves quickly switching between different locations in that region. To stay focussed it is crucial not being forced to change map view. Also, every unnecessary interaction should be avoided. Having to move the map, auto-zoom, lets me quickly loose focus while studying the weather.

In reference to the above, I kindly like to propose small changes to the new app.
Specifically my suggestions are:

• Let users simply tap on the map to show the wind prediction time-line for the tapped location
• Keep shown map region as it is (no auto-zoom) during selection of a new location

I guess, these are ideas, that could be implemented as small modifications with minimal impact on other new features of the app. Implementing this would bring user experience back to the efficient interaction that was provided by the old version of the app.

In summary: An efficient way of studying weather for a certain region is crucial. The old app was very good in this respect, for the new app the "user journey" to get to the same result (wind for a specific location) is too complicated.

So I kindly ask you to discuss/consider my suggestions and I hope you can see the above as constructive ideas.

I'm open to discussion. Please let me know, if anything of the above is unclear.
Probably you can see from the time I invested in my posts here how much I love your app and how much I like to also use it efficiently in the future ;-)
Thank you

Edit: Added reference to "move map" option.

@temp850

you wrote

I am looking at two other options instead of Windy which is sad. I hope they are listening to us.

Which options are you looking at? I'm also very disappointed and need to look for alternatives.

@HarrryKeith
Look for windy at e.g. the apkmirror site. There you will find the apk-file of the old version.

I agree, new version is unusable. Windy should take the ongoing concerns of the community serious and should finally do something about it.

@anthony10

"Neural networks", to this sounds a bit dangerous to rely at... I would prefer to look at the front analyses of the weather services instead.

Guys at Windy. Above you see the report of yet another user who reports that the new UI is NOT more user-friendly than before.

During the last weeks I Iearned that at Windy you guys have the impression, that the new UI is easier to use. As reported many, many times by a lot of users, this is sadly not the case.
Please consider to revert certain things or at least provide options, so that the user can decide upon the preferred mode of interaction.

Things that need to be fixed:

• location picker
• auto-zoom
• layer list

@Ondřej-Šutera

Thank you! I was not aware of that change. A very good step in the right direction!

I just tested it, here some feedback:

My usual "workflow" is to show the forecast for a certain spot on the map (formerly tapping somewhere, now via the crosshair dialog) and then check the forecast for different locations on the map the get an understanding of the weather development for a larger region (e.g. 100km x 100km). This is what I do as a sailor and I assume pilots, hikers etc. will do the same. Checking the different locations was very efficient before by simply tapping somewhere and having the opened forecast dialog update accordingly.

The new feature "Move the map to change ... location" lets me move the map without changing the forecast location. A very good, first step.

Unfortunately the efficiency of checking different locations is still much worse than before. If I first select one location and then want to check a different location, I first have to close the forecast dialog, then move the map to aim for a new location and then tap on "Forecast for this location". These are three steps during which I need to move the map where before it was one single tap without moving the map. At the moment, this is very inefficient and a quite awkward user experience.

Before, the only visual change when comparing different locations was the actual forecast in the popup dialog and the wind arrows on the map. When I tapped on different locations, everything shown remained the same, except the wind arrows and the forecast show in the dialog. This was extremely good to compare forecasts for different locations. Now, with the necessary three steps to change location and the necessity to close and open the forecast dialog including auto-zoom it still lets me "loose orientation" on the map. Very bad...

Furthermore I think there is a bug: When I start the app, aim for a certain location and select "forecast for this location", the forecast dialog pops up and the map zooms and moves. But it moves in such a way, the the actual location that I selected before is somewhere offscreen and not in the focus anymore. Obviously, the selected location should still remain in focus when the forecast popup opens. (Also: Please deactivate auto-zoom (or make it optional), when opening the forecast dialog ;) ).

Please let me know if anything of the above is unclear.

In summary: I very much appreciate, that a little bit has happened with regards to the location selection process. It gives me hope, that our voices as users are heard in a way. Please see the above as constructive feedback to make the user experience better and more efficient, coming again close to the very good user experience that we had with versions prior to v39.

Thank you

said in Switching between weather models now takes 3 clicks:

@Suty Exactly, I mean this whole issue of the new approach to change the weather model.

• Before: One click to change the model.
• Intermediate approach: A menu that open on click to then select the model.
• Now: A new horizontal bar with full length across the screen which shows available models. This task-bar automatically closes after a number of seconds.

I assume, that some developer really, really loves his new horizontal bar...

Please, at least deactivate the "feature", that the bar automatically vanishes/closes after a certain number of seconds. It seriously drives me crazy, when apps think they know better than myself what I want. If I open the bar to see different models I DO NOT want it to vanish after a number of seconds. I want it to stay open, until I BY MYSELF decide to close it.

Thank you.

@Suty since the selection bar for the weather models still automatically vanishes, every word from my cited post above is still valid.

Any news on this?

@Suty

In 2023 I explained in much detail, how I think that the then "new" location picker (or "weather picker") was one of the worst design decisions ever for windy, here the corresponding thread: https://community.windy.com/topic/27520/totally-disappointed-by-recent-update-picker-layer-list

Even today at the end of 2025 I have not adapted at all to the "location picker" concept, that was introduced in 2023. It simply is a very bad way of interacting with the map. Every time I open Windy I'm "disgusted" by having to interact this way with the map.

My suggestions:

• Disable auto-zooming and auto-moving the map when selecting "forecast for this location"
• Allow the user to tap on the map to set location (instead of having to move the map). Tapping where I want to see the weather is the most intuitive way of map interaction.

Please in particular check out my post here, were I explained in detail, why the location picker was much better before 2023:
https://community.windy.com/post/155210
https://community.windy.com/post/167505

@zlatokoza

;)

@Suty Exactly, I mean this whole issue of the new approach to change the weather model.

• Before: One click to change the model.
• Intermediate approach: A menu that open on click to then select the model.
• Now: A new horizontal bar with full length across the screen which shows available models. This task-bar automatically closes after a number of seconds.

I assume, that some developer really, really loves his new horizontal bar...

Please, at least deactivate the "feature", that the bar automatically vanishes/closes after a certain number of seconds. It seriously drives me crazy, when apps think they know better than myself what I want. If I open the bar to see different models I DO NOT want it to vanish after a number of seconds. I want it to stay open, until I BY MYSELF decide to close it.

Thank you.

@Suty Thank you.

Really, really sad, that the developers apparently cannot unterstand our constructive feedback.

Would it be possible that you share what the reasons were to implement (and keep) the current approach?

@BertBril Very well said.

@Windy Team: Please keep user interaction with core functionality as is. To be more precise, revert some of the negative things, that were introduced during the last weeks (see above).

Thank you.

@Suty

Any news on this issue?

@Suty Thank you

@Suty

A quick addition to my last post:

Since I almost exclusively use Windy to check wind-forecasts in wind-mode, I missed, that you already have a perfectly fine way to switch between weather models.

As long as the user does not uses wind mode, there is a dialog at the right side of the screen that allows to quickly change the weather model (see screenshot). This is perfectly fine, there is no need to have a different approach to change weather-models in wind mode, just reuse the existing approach that is shown in standard mode at the right side of the screen.

In only kindly ask you here as well: Also the "standard" dialog shown in the screenshot needs to be extended to show additional models. When extended, also this dialog closes automatically after a few seconds. Please (please) deactivate this automatic behavior or make the timeout a user-option.

@Suty

Could you discuss at Windy, to not close the model-selection panel automatically after a few seconds?

As a user I either want to see that panel to quickly select different models and study their forecast or I want to hide that panel. I do not benefit in any way from an auto-hide mechanism with a time-out that I cannot configure.

The current auto-hide "feature" is a true pain. Let me explain: Lets say, I want to study forecasts, open the panel, select a certain model. Then, I look at the map and after a few seconds the panel closes by itself. The closing also means, that the entire forecast table spontaneously moves in vertical direction, which is extremely distracting when studying the table data.
Then, after half a minute or so I want to see the map data for a different model and have to repeat the above all over again instead of just clicking on a different model.

In conclusion: The interaction with the UI is not good at all in this respect. Any automatic things are a bad thing in my opinion. Please realize, that each user has a different time-span for which he needs to have the model-panel open.

Please disable the auto-hide "feature" or at least make it configurable to let the user decide if the model-panel should hide by itself or not.

As an alternative: Please discuss, if it is an option, to move the model-selection panel to the right side below the layer-section symbols.