 Virtually any smartphone you buy today can tell you the basic weather out of the box. But if you're willing to dig into the app stores, you'll find countless weather apps that promise to be more accurate, give you more information, and be nicer to look at than your smartphone's default. Weather apps are some of the most useful apps on my phone. They determine what I'll wear and where I'll go in any given day. The apps that come with your smartphone can tell you the current weather conditions and perhaps a short forecast. But if you want more information, such as longer forecasts, radar maps, or severe weather alerts, you're going to have to look elsewhere. For the iPhone, the best paid weather app is hands down Dark Sky. It's $399, which might sound like a lot, but Dark Sky has an uncanny ability to pinpoint your location down to a street address and then tell you exactly how many minutes you have before it will rain. The first time you get a push notification to your phone letting you know that it will rain in 15 minutes and last for 11 minutes and that's exactly what happens, you quickly forget about the few bucks you spent on Dark Sky. Dark Sky is also a full featured weather app with 24 hour and full week forecasts and animated maps for precipitation and temperature. Importantly, Dark Sky has an easy to use design with bouncy but informative animations sprinkled throughout. It also works on both the iPhone and the iPad. It's almost silly to say this about a weather app, but Dark Sky is just fun to use. If you're looking for a great free weather app, you can't do any better than Yahoo Weather. It's one of the prettiest weather apps ever, very clearly inspiring Apple's own weather app introduced with iOS 7. But it doesn't just offer good looks, Yahoo Weather is as feature complete as they come and it doesn't have any obnoxious ads interrupting your forecast. Yahoo Weather presents the current conditions in a beautiful font overlaid on images pulled from Flickr and it provides more information in a vertically scrolling column. There are hourly forecasts, 5 or 10 day forecasts, and detailed weather information for the current conditions. It works on both the iPhone and the iPad and it even has animated radar maps, but it does lack alerts for severe weather conditions. Over on Android, the best paid weather app you can get is AccuWeather Platinum. For $299, AccuWeather Platinum offers pretty much everything you can ask for in a weather app. Detailed current conditions, accurate hourly predictions, forecasts that stretch out for up to 3 weeks, animated radar maps, and TV style video forecasts. It also has minute by minute forecasts and exact locations, right down to your street level. AccuWeather's design is clean and fits right in with Android's native design language and it includes informative and attractive home screen widgets. There are no ads in the Platinum version and you can opt to have your current weather permanently displayed in your phone's notification tray, as well as get push notifications for severe weather conditions. You can get the free version of AccuWeather, which offers the same features and design, but it comes with obnoxious banner ads that ruin the experience for me. As with iOS, the best free option on Android is Yahoo Weather. Virtually everything that makes Yahoo Weather great on the iPhone is found in the Android version, including its clean but information dense design. The only thing the Android app is missing compared to iOS is animated radar maps, and it doesn't have the minute by minute forecasts offered by AccuWeather. There are countless other options out there, everything ranging from the ultra simple weather line to the graphics heavy clear day to the ultra complex radar scope and even old standbys like WeatherBug and the Weather Channel's own app. But when you cut through the noise, what you really want is a weather app that's accurate, powerful, and pleasant to use every day. You'll pay a few dollars to get that experience in dark sky or AccuWeather Platinum, but when you're able to duck inside just before that torrential downpour, it'll be worth every penny.
 Virtually any smartphone you buy today can tell you the basic weather out of the box.
 But if you're willing to dig into the app stores, you'll find countless weather apps
 that promise to be more accurate, give you more information, and be nicer to look at
 than your smartphone's default.
 Weather apps are some of the most useful apps on my phone.
 They determine what I'll wear and where I'll go in any given day.
 The apps that come with your smartphone can tell you the current weather conditions and
 perhaps a short forecast.
 But if you want more information, such as longer forecasts, radar maps, or severe weather
 alerts, you're going to have to look elsewhere.
 For the iPhone, the best paid weather app is hands down Dark Sky.
 It's $399, which might sound like a lot, but Dark Sky has an uncanny ability to pinpoint
 your location down to a street address and then tell you exactly how many minutes you
 have before it will rain.
 The first time you get a push notification to your phone letting you know that it will
 rain in 15 minutes and last for 11 minutes and that's exactly what happens, you quickly
 forget about the few bucks you spent on Dark Sky.
 Dark Sky is also a full featured weather app with 24 hour and full week forecasts and animated
 maps for precipitation and temperature.
 Importantly, Dark Sky has an easy to use design with bouncy but informative animations sprinkled
 throughout.
 It also works on both the iPhone and the iPad.
 It's almost silly to say this about a weather app, but Dark Sky is just fun to use.
 If you're looking for a great free weather app, you can't do any better than Yahoo Weather.
 It's one of the prettiest weather apps ever, very clearly inspiring Apple's own weather
 app introduced with iOS 7.
 But it doesn't just offer good looks, Yahoo Weather is as feature complete as they come
 and it doesn't have any obnoxious ads interrupting your forecast.
 Yahoo Weather presents the current conditions in a beautiful font overlaid on images pulled
 from Flickr and it provides more information in a vertically scrolling column.
 There are hourly forecasts, 5 or 10 day forecasts, and detailed weather information for the current
 conditions.
 It works on both the iPhone and the iPad and it even has animated radar maps, but it does
 lack alerts for severe weather conditions.
 Over on Android, the best paid weather app you can get is AccuWeather Platinum.
 For $299, AccuWeather Platinum offers pretty much everything you can ask for in a weather
 app.
 Detailed current conditions, accurate hourly predictions, forecasts that stretch out for
 up to 3 weeks, animated radar maps, and TV style video forecasts.
 It also has minute by minute forecasts and exact locations, right down to your street
 level.
 AccuWeather's design is clean and fits right in with Android's native design language
 and it includes informative and attractive home screen widgets.
 There are no ads in the Platinum version and you can opt to have your current weather permanently
 displayed in your phone's notification tray, as well as get push notifications for severe
 weather conditions.
 You can get the free version of AccuWeather, which offers the same features and design,
 but it comes with obnoxious banner ads that ruin the experience for me.
 As with iOS, the best free option on Android is Yahoo Weather.
 Virtually everything that makes Yahoo Weather great on the iPhone is found in the Android
 version, including its clean but information dense design.
 The only thing the Android app is missing compared to iOS is animated radar maps, and
 it doesn't have the minute by minute forecasts offered by AccuWeather.
 There are countless other options out there, everything ranging from the ultra simple weather
 line to the graphics heavy clear day to the ultra complex radar scope and even old standbys
 like WeatherBug and the Weather Channel's own app.
 But when you cut through the noise, what you really want is a weather app that's accurate,
 powerful, and pleasant to use every day.
 You'll pay a few dollars to get that experience in dark sky or AccuWeather Platinum, but when
 you're able to duck inside just before that torrential downpour, it'll be worth every
 penny.