What would you do if you wanted to know what the weather is like right now? Naturally you would take a peek out the window. YoWindow Free is a free interactive weather reporting app that takes this concept and flips it on its head; it will show you the current weather or the weather forecast as a virtual visual representation of what the landscape would look like if you looked outside.
YoWindow Free delivers the weather forecast as well as a host of other meteorological info. It runs as a desktop app and in the system tray, but can also be set as the default screensaver.
More notes on this program as follows:
- An interactive timeline: clicking anywhere on the timeline on top of the screen displays a visual representation of the weather at any point of the day. The virtual window will reflect the time as well, with darkness enveloping the scene at night, etc.
- Four days of weather forecast: YoWindow Free can display the weather forecast for the current day as well as 3 days into the future. (The paid version will give the whole week).
- Store up to two city profiles: for quick weather forecast retrieval. The paid version allows an unlimited number of cities.
Instant weather in the system tray: mouse over the system tray icon for a quick report (see screenshot to the right).- Changing the scenery: is possible, although the free version comes with the single village scene you see in the screenshots above. I am unsure as to whether other scenes are or will be available for download.
- Memory use: 9 megs running minimized in the system tray. Which is not a lot.
- Differences between the free and paid versions: free version restricted to reporting 4 days of weather rather than the whole week, and storing 2 city profiles only.
The verdict: a cute little app. The restrictions on the free app are somewhat annoying (and a mistake in my humble opinion), but I decided to post this program on the merits of the screensaver alone (and because I like the concept).
Overall YoWindow offers some good entertainment value, and at 9 megs in memory it will not tax your system resources. Give it a try.
Version Tested: 2.0 build 267
Compatibility: Windows 7, XP, Vista.
Go to the program home pageto download the latest version (approx 2.66 megs).
When I read it, my first thought was “At last”.
In Linux, KDE does this for some time now, but I couldn’t find something similar for Windows.
The restrictions of the free version are not so welcome, though
Anyway, I will give it a try…
A correction to my previous post: what KDE does is changing your wallpaper according to the weather / time, while YoWindow is a screensaver (here’s a good feature request for YoWindow).
Anyway, I am playing with it right now and it looks nice.
Thanks for another interesting post
PS: You should tweet your new posts (feedburner does that automatically). It would be easier, at least for me, to follow your updates.
It’s me again (sorry for the triple post)
I ‘ve played for a while with the free version and I found two major drawbacks:
1. The weather update must be manually done by the user (in the paid version it’s automatic)
2. In their website it says that in the future users “may experience ads”
If it weren’t for that (especially the first one), it could be a very nice free application, even with the restrictions in locations and forecast days
I think this would make a quaint wallpaper, but I very rarely use my screensaver so I wouldn’t get to see it.
Useful after a nuclear war when the user is safely 100 feet underground. Otherwise having a peek out the window is faster.
Totally useless.
I like it and think it is a very cool idea, and it does not have to be ran as a screensaver but can also be ran in the system tray like any app. And for pro version only $9.00? Heck I jumped all over that offer
Looks very promising and I can’t wait until they get more backgrounds and more sources for even more locations. I was not all that happy to see future add support in the free version, but hey they have to pay the bills and in this day and age $9.00 is not much at all for a smooth, nice app like this.
Thanks for the cool find!
Filtereyez
@gsarig: thanks for all your comments. I wish all my readers were so enthusiastic and forthright!
I will say though that after using this for about 3 days I can confirm that it does auto update. I have never had to update it manually, and the screensaver definitely changes reliably.
@ Transcontinental: “Useful after a nuclear war when the user is safely 100 feet underground” — lmao!
But I think “totally useless” is an unfair verdict. This is a toy and an original idea. I install dozens of titles every month and totally original ideas are few and far between.
@Samer: I think I saw the autoupdate too. I don’t know why they mention on their website that the weather updates are manual. Perhaps in the free version the updates are not so often while in the paid one they are real-time (at least that’s my guess).
Anyway, I still use it on my laptop and I think it’s a nice little app. To be honest, I don’t use it so much for the screensaver, but because I found it convenient that you can have the temperature on the system tray.
What I also like is that you can use your own photos instead of the default theme, and it it darkens / lightens them according to the time (I does that in the free version too).
Weather auto-update is FREE starting today.
We just have opened this feature in the free edition.
Please download the latest version from our site.
Now only 2 restrictions left:
3 day weather forecast
2 favorite cities maximum
Samer, the review is brilliant.
We have started 3 months ago.
This is the first time our program got high visibility on the net.
Because of your post.
Thank you!
Eh, I forgot to mention that I’m one of the authors of YoWindow.
Pavel.
@Pavel: this is good news – you are making this application even more likeable
After that, I will install it on my desktop too and I will definitely recommend it easier to other people
@Samer: not only you present interesting apps, but you are also improving them!
Just downloaded it and can’t wait to try this free piece of software. I hope its works on Windows 7 ok.
Thanks finding this one.