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Carrot Weather receives major overhaul with new design and customization, now free to download

Carrot Weather has seen some great updates over the years, particularly with some sharp widgets alongside iOS 14 last year. But today’s 5.0 update is next level for the highly popular weather app. Carrot Weather now features a fresh vertical layout, all-new icons built from scratch, a slick “Interface Maker” to customize the app exactly how you want, new “Cards” UI element, and the app has now gone free to download with in-app purchases to unlock all the premium features.

The major 5.0 Carrot Weather update is available now for existing and new users with developer Grailr sharing all the fine details in a blog post this morning.

New Carrot Weather design

CARROT’s new design is brighter, cleaner, and easier to navigate. She now uses native UI elements to make her fit in great with other iOS apps – while still retaining the same personality that has made her so popular.

The current observations section at the top is full of little touches of personality. Pay attention to the way the trees and the smoke wafting off the power plant react to your location’s wind speed, for example. (Just be careful not to disturb the nuclear reactor.)

The new custom built icons were made to look fantastic on everything from iPhone and iPad all the way down to Apple Watch.

They’re not just bold and chonky, though: they pack in more information, too. There are icons for new weather conditions, like mostly clear and mostly cloudy. And the precipitation icons even give you a hint as to how much it’ll rain (check how full the water droplet is).

Vertical layout

Beyond the new aesthetic, the new design includes a switch to a vertical layout that’s really rich with information. For long-time Carrot users, don’t forget to swipe with the new update to see more info. I’ve been using the new update for a few weeks now and absolutely love it.

Carrot weather major update

Cards

Going further, the new Carrot is using smart cards to show more detailed information without crowding your screen.

Cards surface interesting data that’s usually buried deep in other weather apps.

CARROT is smart, so she won’t load your screen up with a bunch of useless cards. If you open the app on a relatively calm day, you might only see sunrise/sunset and moon phase cards. But when the weather starts to turn, new cards will bubble up to highlight potential hazards: a big drop in pressure over the next 3 hours, gale-force winds this afternoon, two inches of rain in the next day.

Carrot Weather update

New Carrot Weather customization

Another exciting aspect here is the new “Interface Maker.” This makes Carrot Weather more customizable than ever before, and you can save your layouts with a preset option.

CARROT has always been known for her customizability. Users love that they can configure the UI to display any data point they want.

But I always felt like I was only scratching the surface here. People use weather apps for completely different reasons depending on where they live, what they do for a living, and what their hobbies are. That’s one of the reasons there are so many different weather apps out there: because different people need to see different data arranged in different layouts to meet their needs. One size does not fit all when it comes to weather apps.

So that’s why I created Interface Maker, a tool for building the weather app of your dreams.

You can add new components to the Weather tab, rearrange the ones you already have, change their designs, insert additional data points, adjust the spacing between them, and so much more. The system is incredibly flexible, allowing you to create entirely different designs to suit your exact needs. There’s really never been a more customizable weather app.

There are even various presets pre-loaded to try out, and even one that is like the Carrot Weather 4.0 layout. And they’re really easy to switch between.

CARROT is including a selection of prebuilt presets to show you just how powerful the customization engine really is. Odin is the default. Chronos reproduces the old v4.0 layout. And there’s also Siren, Fenrir, Bahamut, and Puck.

More

This updates also includes a ton of other new additions like 30 alternate app icons, lots of Easter eggs, new secret locations and dialogue, and more.

It wouldn’t be a major CARROT update without new stuff to play with.

There’s thousands of lines of new snarky weather dialogue, 8 new secret locations, 20 new achievements, 30 new alternate app icons, and a bunch of new Easter eggs.

There’s even a dedicated CARROT tab now, which is where you’ll find secret locations and achievements, as well as some new sections like one for tracking your high scores on various weather data points.

Now free to download

Finally, Carrot Weather is shifting its business model with 5.0. The app used to be $4.99 with optional in-app subscriptions to unlock all the advanced features.

Now Carrot Weather is free to download and keeps the in-app purchases for the premium features. This is great so anyone can test out the app before deciding to unlock all the great features available.

Here’s how this works for existing users:

I announced this change earlier this month, so check that post for more details on how it affects new and existing customers. But rest assured, existing customers will get to keep all of the features from the original upfront payment version of the app forever and they will also have their current Premium Club pricing locked in.

And I love what Grailr has done with the free version. Instead of spammy ads, it uses fake, humorous ads or ads for other indie apps.

Carrot Weather is available on the App Store for iPhone, iPad, and Apple Watch.

Read more details about the update on Carrot’s website.

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Avatar for Michael Potuck Michael Potuck

Michael is an editor for 9to5Mac. Since joining in 2016 he has written more than 3,000 articles including breaking news, reviews, and detailed comparisons and tutorials.