AccuWeather App Featured at BlackBerry Jam Europe 2013

February 11, 2013 Sina Sojoodi

Dave Protasowski and I had the opportunity to travel with our friends from BlackBerry as they continued to promote the launch of BB10, specifically reconnecting with developers across the globe. Our most recent session with them was in Europe, where they were hosting the BlackBerry 10 Jam in Amsterdam. (You can find out more here if you’re curious.)

In their keynote, BlackBerry executives Alec Saunders and Vivek Bhardwaj introduced the Q10 phone with the BB10 AccuWeather app, built by Xtreme Labs. Bhardwaj repeatedly called the app one of the best examples of a “beautiful app on BB10” (his words, not mine!), and kept the demo on the slide screen as the two speakers addressed the crowd.

Focusing on their statement that “the theme of developing applications for BlackBerry 10 is integrated, social and beautiful,” Saunders and Bhardwaj praised AccuWeather as “a great example of how beautiful applications can look.” They described the app as “fast, easy to use…social as well, really well integrated.”

As if this wasn’t accomplishment enough, I’m very proud to announce that AccuWeather has been named the top free app in BlackBerry World, with a 4.5/5 star rating!

Considering all the praise it’s received, we’ll dive a bit deeper into the BB10 AccuWeather app and highlight some of its most interesting features:

Video Feeds

The daily video feeds are particularly interesting because they are region-specific. AccuWeather has a few video feeds for the major American cities, a single feed for Canada, and around ten items for outside North America.

Granular Weather Conditions

Depending on where the closest weather station is, AccuWeather will adjust its temperature to very small regions. I know there are users who appreciate the level of detail and specificity that AccuWeather offers; they are going to love this.

Weather Maps

The weather maps aren’t native; they’re actually a web view of AccuWeather’s maps. Users can choose between radar and satellite views. As a result of our designers’ hard work, there are 40 different beautiful animations for a huge variety of weather conditions. These weather conditions get updated hourly.

In addition to these three highlights, the app takes advantage of BB10’s livetile feature, prompts users with extreme weather conditions (which would’ve come in handy in Toronto last Friday, eh?), and displays hourly updates for up to 72 hours in advance.

In addition to shouting out the designers, I’d like to tip my hat to Stuart Pollock and the development team who took charge of the AccuWeather BB10 app. It was incredible that they managed to put the pedal to the metal and produce this app within 4.5 weeks.

Our developers agree that BB10 was a pleasure to build for, and it’s an exciting time to be building mobile apps. Keep your eye on BlackBerry as they continue their journey around the world.We’ve got some more BB10 apps coming that are going to knock your socks off, so stay tuned.

A full replay of the BlackBerry Jam Europe 2013 General Session can be viewed here.

Connect with Sina on LinkedIn and Twitter.

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