The Weather & Toggle Widget, developed by Android Apps, is extremely detailed and a fully functional app for the most finicky of weather watchers. It is beautifully designed and highly customizable – allowing users to have a system that reflects their personality as well as weather and toggle switches right on their desktop!

The weather widget itself is comprised of a flip clock as the prominent feature and the weather embedded into the same widget, so you not only get the weather, you also get a very nice clock that is easy to read. The weather widget has many settings to further customize the widget, such as Fahrenheit and Celsius settings, and an option to choose another program when you click on the weather part of the widget, (which also brings up a separate dialog to forecast the rest of the week). The weather dialog portion also has an add-on found in the Market that gives extra capabilities to the widget, such as animated clouds and other related images. Also, one very cool feature is the screen shots option to show images of your area and the surrounding areas, which gives a user a visual heads up to what they could encounter on their way to wherever it is they’re heading.

In addition, the Weather & Toggle Widget includes a set of toggle switches that allow the user a quick and easy way to change particular settings on their phone with a simple click of the widget – including brightness level, GPS, WIFI and more.

To top it all off, Android Apps provides a method to “theme” the widget along with the toggle switches, which completes the customization we all enjoy. The themes add a skin to the widget, as well as images associated with the widget. The theme also skins the toggle switches to provide a complete custom look.

The Weather & Toggle Widget is a paid or “donate” version which costs $1.99. There is a free version which does not come with all of the features of the Weather & Toggle Widget; it does, however, still allow themes and other customizations. Android Apps also developed add-on packs for the free version to include some of the paid features to the non-paid widget.

The Goods:

• The ability to completely theme the entire widget and accompanying widgets.
• The ability to choose a separate program to open, which allows for quicker use of resources.
• Accurate weather
• Animated forecasts
• Screen shots from surrounding areas
• Large, skinable, flip clock
• Toggle widgets that can also be skinned or “themed”
• A free and donate version to allow one to “try before you buy”
• Excellent support, if anything happens to fail.

The Bad:

• Would like to see more themes
• Sometimes can be buggy, but not often enough to destroy its performance.
• The widget must be excluded from any task killer list (not really a bad thing, but a requirement)

Final Verdict

The Weather & Toggle Widget by Android Apps is a fully featured and highly customizable widget that boasts sleekness and efficiency that a smart phone user has come to expect. If you need a nice flip clock, weather forecast and toggle switches for ease of use, then this is for you. With the Weather & Toggle Widget, you will never have to squint to see the time, worry if your hair will look like a 70’s rock band mid-day or harness your godly forecasting abilities – you can save your powers for something a bit more useful!

Gallery

Note: This review was submitted by Phillip Toohill as part of our app review contest.

Pkt Auctions

Pkt Auctions

OK, granted this is the only eBay applications but it is still worth a look if you spend any time at all on eBay. I’m not spending nearly as much time on eBay as I once did but I much prefer this application to eBay’s mobile site. The interface is straightforward and breaks up the listing in such a way that makes browsing even a large number of listings a breeze. If you want to see the original list, Pkt Auctions will display it as well.

Any Clip

This application works in concert with an iGoogle widget of their own web site. When first using Any Clip it gives you a special code to input on the Any Clip site and the iGoogle widget. This code links the web and mobile applications together. What is so special about this application is it simply pushes notes to the mobile device. Those notes can be anything. A few ideas that come to mind are URLs, email addresses, phone numbers, shopping lists, to-dos, Wi-Fi Keys and more.

Contacts Cleanup

Contacts Clean-Up

Perhaps I’m a little OCD about my contacts but I like having uniform format across all of my contacts. There aren’t many tools to help me in that endeavor for Google Contacts but this one at least cleans up the phone numbers. You can format the numbers four different ways, preview the changes and then apply and re-run as needed for new contacts. The whole process is very quick, less than a minute for nearly 400 contacts. Contacts Clean-Up hasn’t messed with any of the International numbers I have for some contacts, so you need not worry about those. I’d venture to say this app may only work for +1 (US/Canada/Caribbean) formatted numbers.

PingDroid

PingDroid is a Ping.fm client for Android. Ping.fm allows for easy updating to an ever growing number of social networks and other services, including posting to blogs. I’ve had the chance to get a sneak peak at the next release which will include support for bit.ly and tr.im in addition to Ping.fm’s own URL shortener service. One additional new feature will be the ability to select PingDroid from the browser through the menu and Share this page. I’ve been playing with these new features and I really like them a lot. PingDroid loads faster than Ping.fm’s own mobile site with a simple GUI negating the need to remember any special formatted commands to use via IM.

Night Clock

Night Clock

Night Clock is a real no nonsense alarm clock that does what it does without all the fancy bells and whistles. When launched Night Clock uses the entire screen in landscape mode. Long press the speaker icon to set the alarm clock. I love how the alarm is programmed; simply drag your finger left or right to adjust the alarm time. Use your own audio files for your alarm sound. To turn off the alarm just exit the application. I do wish the font of the clock took up more real estate on the screen. I like this app because it has been dependable and while it may not have as many options or settings it just works. It also serves well as a night time bedside clock.

AutoLock

I like having the added security of screen lock enabled but it annoys me when it enables every time the screen goes dark. AutoLock solves the problem by allowing you to set the time frame before the screen lock becomes active. For quick screen locking enable the Home screen Lock option in settings. A Lock icon will appear on the home screen, select the icon and press the End key to lock the screen immediately.

Pixel Pipe

PixelPipe

I’m the first to admit the G1′s camera isn’t what I’d expect from a mobile device released in 2008, nevertheless for the pictures I do take I want a way to send them out somewhere. PixelPipe supports sending images to a number of sites such a Twitpic, Flickr, blogs and more. Better still, PixelPipe works on a number of different platforms including S60, Windows Mobile, and even via email for the platform agnostic among us. PixelPipe’s delivery of images is speedy and very reliable.

Weather

Weather is a small, a mere 265kb, weather application. Weather supports multiple cities with a simple slide to either the left or right to scroll through your cities. Weather’s configuration is straight forward without a lot of flare giving the highs and lows along with a small graphic for several days. For more in-depth detail Weather takes you to Weather Underground‘s mobile site. So many weather applications are loaded down with graphics  and try to bring every detail of the weather to your handset.  What you usually need to know can be covered with high’s, low’s and a small graphic depicting the day’s outlook. Similar to Night Clock, the less is more approach works well for this application.

SMS Backup

SMS Backup

Who among us hasn’t wanted to save SMS from time to time? Thanks to SMS Backup not only can you save some of your SMS, you can save them all. By enabling IMAP for your Gmail account, SMS Backup will upload your SMS to Gmail to read, forward and search as if it were any other email sent or received. I love being able to find messages when I need them. No longer do I need to keep a large volume of messages on my device when I can view them anytime right along with my email. Google Apps users: SMS Backup works for your email accounts too.

Locale

Locale has a lot of options to change everything from Display to Wireless settings. There are several applications that allow easy profile settings but most are a manual process. Locale takes profile settings further and enables profiles based on location. It uses either GPS or Wireless GPS to determine the device’s location and then changes profiles accordingly. With Locale I have profiles for home, work and other locations and almost never open Locale. Locale has a couple plug-ins with an API in the works to allow others to create their own plug-ins. Locale has released two plug-ins thus far: Twitter and SMS. Both send messages to either Twitter or via SMS. I’ve used a lot of different profile managers over the years on a number of different platforms and I can easily say Locale is among the best.

Depending on your job and life style, the weather can have a big impact on your daily schedule.  I constantly travel for work and having real time access to forecast information is vital.  Every day I check the weather on my G1 and I have used almost every weather application in the Android Market.  There are so many weather apps available, but today I have chosen to highlight the top 3 and discuss the advantages and short comings of each.

The Weather Channel Home Screen

The Weather Channel

This is the number one downloaded application in the Android Market and I use it almost every day.  Several updates have been released since the program launched and they continue to improve performance.  There is no website for the development of the app, but if you send an email to the developer you can get a response.

What they got right:

• My Places – This allows me to see the current weather of all the cities I travel to on one screen.  I can easily click each one to get more details
• 10 Day Forecast – This is the longest forecast I have seen.  Most of the others are up to 7 days.
• Video – Each morning in bed I can watch a video forecast for my area.  In larger cities I visit like Austin, they have city level video that is constantly updated.
• Map Layers -  There are 8 layers offered which is more than most apps.  I like checking the temperature maps whenever a cold front blows in.
• 36 Hour Updates – Other apps have this but I like how it is presented here.  You can see the high, lows, and conditions for the next 3 half days.  Perfect abbreviated format.

Areas they are lacking:

• No Radar Loops – There currently are no loops offered for the map layers.
• Slow Map Loads -  The map layers work great on WiFi, but on Edge the performance is bad.  Either the map won’t load or the application is sluggish and force closes.
• Motion Gestures – When you are in a city page, any finger gesture to the right or left will change the city you are viewing.  I accidently change cities a lot when I am simply trying to scroll down the page to see more.  This is bad design and needs to be fixed.

WeatherBug Home Screen

WeatherBug

Many years ago I was a PC technician, so when I see the name WeatherBug I think spyware.  To be fair though, they have a nice Android application.  The interface is designed well for the mobile platform and they include some features that no one else has.  For example, you can share your weather updates with friends using Twidroid.

What they got right:

• Notifications – The latest version shows the current conditions directly in the notifications.  It is updated based on your location, so you can easily see the current temperature and conditions without any clicks.
• Design – The UI has nice slide animations between the different screens.  You can quickly slide between day and hourly forecst.
• Live Weather Cams – I don’t really use this feature much, but it is unique to this app.  You can view weather cams and some have the ability to rotate.  They also offer video, but this feature fails to work for me on the current version.

Areas they are lacking:

• Notification Settings – There is no option to control the frequency of the temperature notifications.  I constantly was looking at my phone and see it refreshing.  More control is needed to improve battery life.  I liked this feature but I had to turn it off.
• Ads- Why include WeatherBug ads on the WeatherBug app?  I guess they are just holding space for ads.  Sometimes the app slows down while the ad tries to load.
• No Radar Loops – Again, I like to see the current radar loop for my location when I am driving.  This lets me know if I am about to drive through a big storm.

iMap Weather Home Screen

iMap Weather

iMap Weather is the only Android application I have found that can provide radar loops on the go.  I have used this many times while I’m driving down the highway.  I hate driving in the rain and it has helped me avoid some big storm cells.  This client is one of the most basic, but it just works.

What they got right:

• Radar Loops – Actual radar loops that load while I’m on the go.  I keep this app installed just for this feature alone.
• Follow Me – This allows the application to show your location on the map and it scrolls as you move.  Very helpful for driving when I am about to head into a big storm.
• Quick Zoom – I like their ability to zoom the map to continent, state, city, and street level with 1 click.
• Performance – This is a very simple and clean app.  If you are not looking for all the extra features, I would suggest this app.  From my experience it has the best maps performance while I’m driving and using the Edge network.

Areas they are lacking:

• Limited Map Layers – Currently you can only view radar and lightning strikes.  I would love to see loops of different overlays.
• Home Screen – The way each city is displayed, you can only fit two cities at a time on the home screen.  With The Weather Channel, I can do 6.

So which weather application do you prefer?  It really depends on how you check the weather and which features you need.  Each app has its own unique features and I have to rely on multiple programs to meet my demands.  Currently, I use The Weather Channel for all my forecast information.  Nothing comes close to me for the 10 day forecast, video updates, and map layers available.  If they add loops in a future release and improve the performance, I might be able to use it exclusively.  As stated earlier, I keep iMap Weather just for the animated maps.

So while the perfect app does not exist yet, I am more than satisfied with what is available to me.  I never imagined any of these features on my old phone.  Now that I have the instant access to weather information, I don’t think I’ll ever be able to go without.  The increased competition can only help the future development of the weather apps and I look forward to see what new features are added.  I encourage you to try another weather app even if you have found one you like.  You might find a new feature you can’t live without.

If you experience any issues with an app or have feature suggestions, I encourage you to email the developer using the email link found in the Market.  I have been doing this not only for weather apps, but all apps I use.  I am pleasantly surprised with how often I get an actual response.  These guys like to hear from their customers, so take advantage of it.  Sadly, none of these three I covered today have a website for you to track their progress.  I have requested it to several devs and I’m hoping we see it one day.

If you would like to see more screen shots, please check back later.  My gallery is not quite working, but it will be fixed.  Same goes for a lot of other stories as well.

[p.s. accuweather, i love ur website and the firefox plugin and all but your android app sux...]