Today, I officially put Avlo Weather into Private Beta! It's been a few weeks of work, and I think it's finally at a point where it's genuinely useful and not just a demo.
This post covers what the app does, (some of) how it's built, and why I made it instead of just using one of the dozens of weather apps already out there.
Why build a weather app?
The weather apps I was using all had one of two problems: they were either too simple (basically just a number and an icon) or bloated with ads, paywalls, and dark patterns.
I wanted an app that felt premium and gave me real information — pro details, actual radar, etc — without asking me to create an account, watch an ad, or pay a monthly subscription for features that should just be included.
"No ads. No account. No upsells. Just the weather."
That's the whole pitch. If that sounds good to you, grab a TestFlight invite (Select "Private Beta Request").
What's in the app
How it's built
Avlo Weather uses free public APIs. There is no backend, no server costs, no middleman.
- Open-Meteo for forecasts — free, open-source, excellent accuracy
- NOAA nowCOAST for NEXRAD radar — the same data professional meteorologists use
- NWS API for weather alerts — official government data, free
- Nominatim / OpenStreetMap for reverse geocoding
What's next
The beta is intentionally small for now — I want to make sure it's solid before opening it up more broadly. A few things on the near-term list:
- Home screen widgets
- Precipitation notifications
- Hourly precipitation chart
- More detailed conditions (pressure, dew point trend)
If you have feedback, bug reports, or feature ideas — the contact page goes directly to my inbox. I try to read every single email.
Avlo Weather is the first of many apps in the Avlo suite. More things are in progress 👀. I'll post updates here as they develop.