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MyObservatory app for iPhone and iPad


4.0 ( 9280 ratings )
Weather Utilities
Developer: Hong Kong Observatory
Free
Current version: 7.3.5, last update: 5 months ago
First release : 22 Mar 2010
App size: 241.67 Mb

The “MyObservatory” is a highly popular weather app providing personalized weather services. The app provides current weather including temperature, relative humidity, rainfall, wind direction and speed, as well as weather photograph collected from nearby weather stations at users location, specified location, or selected weather stations. Weather photos and rainfall data will be updated at 5-minute and 15-minute intervals respectively. Other data will be updated in 10-minute interval and the update time will be displayed at the bottom of the front page.

Points to note:
1. The notification service of weather warnings, Special Weather Tips, and Location-based Rain Forecast is provided through the Apple Push Notification service (APNs). The Hong Kong Observatory cannot guarantee the reception of the above notifications by users. Users should not rely on the mobile app as the only means for reception of important weather information. Depending on factors such as network usage and quality of users mobile phone connection, it may take 5 to 20 minutes or even longer for the app to receive the notification after it is issued by the Hong Kong Observatory.

2. Use of Location-based Rain Forecast notification will increase the battery usage and data download slightly. Users who wish to save battery usage of the app may enable the notification function in rainy days and before outdoor activities, and disable the function in sunny days and after finishing the outdoor activities. Meanwhile, selecting options of less frequent update and lower position accuracy in the advanced settings of the notification function may also save battery usage.

3. Although the “MyObservatory” is a free app, user will be charged by their mobile network service provider on the use of data service. These charges can become very expensive on roaming. Please ensure that the option of “Data Roaming” have been disabled in the settings of your mobile devices.

4. In the "My Location Settings", users can opt for using the automatic location service provided by the smartphone, or designating "My Location" on the map themselves. This location will be displayed on the main page and in "My Weather Report". If your location cannot be found, "My Location" will show the last location which was successfully found or "Hong Kong Observatory". The meteorological data displayed on "My Location" or the station you added is provided by meteorological stations nearby, and is not necessarily from a station in the same region. In case meteorological data is not available from nearby stations, data from other meteorological stations at headquarter of the Observatory, Kings Park, and Star Ferry will be used instead. If this is the case, the symbol ▲ will appear to the left of the updated time.

5. The location displayed in the function of "My Weather Report" is provided by third party provider.

6. Because of the variation in both the terrian and height of where the weather stations located, and the variation of your location estimated by the mobile phone, users be noted that there would be difference between the actual situation and the weather information shown on "MyObservatory."

7. The clock on the main page of the app is displayed with HKT synchronizing automatically to the Observatorys Internet Time Server, and may not be the same as the time displayed on the smartphone.

8. The app provides link for users to browse the Observatorys Facebook Page. Users may choose to log in his/her own Facebook account. More features of Facebook can be used after logging in. Please be reminded to pay attention to the notes of the Facebook Page, and the privacy policies of the Facebook platform.

Pros and cons of MyObservatory app for iPhone and iPad

MyObservatory app good for

Many features and real time weather warnings. Applications bugs occasionally.
It seems to work if you dont activate the location services. But please fix the bug
Requested landscape mode for iPad years ago. Apparently never going to happen. An essential app that I use all the time but cant get something so simple added.
Try as I could, I was not able to get this App to stay open for more than 3 seconds after launching on my 3GS 32GB running IOS4.0.01 Given the weather in Hong Kong, there is a No.3 Wind signal up as I write, I would like to think that this will be atleast as good as the other Hong Kong Weather Apps. Assuming that the crashing gets fixed, the next question is why use this in preference to some of the other, excellent Hong Kong Weather Apps? Tried to start again after a couple of hours and it has stopped crashing. The language setting. By default it is preset to Cantonese. In the top right hand corner press the icon that looks like a knife and fork. Its actuallu a spanner & screwdriver. You are now in settings, but it is still in Cantonese. Look at the top of the second second box on the screen. It is full of chinese characters with an arrow on the far right handside side. Press that line of characters (it is traditional chinese for "Language"). You can now selecte either traditional or simplified chinese characters or English. When you select English, every thing in this App changes to English. Frankly, not well designed from the point of view of a non traditional character reader and obviously a feature that needs to be improved. Everything else is very good except for what appears to be a major ommission that the competition offers. I cannot find any push alerts for warnings / alerts from the Observatory. Whilst I accept that this app is free, but so is the competition which does offer all warnings / alerts from the Observatory. Given that this App is the official App from the Observatory, the ommission of push alerts that carry warnings / alerts that are generated by the Observatory is a huge ommission, given that they are provided by the competition. So in conclusion, this is good, but obviously must be improved ASAP just to match the competition. How to be better however is the real question.
Look to the upper-right corner u see a setting option tap it, then select language/語言, then chose...
Well mine is in English, so i dont get how people can only see Chinese. I think you should be able to change the language in the settings. (: Other than that, this app is easy and convenient to use (:

Some bad moments

It's very disgusting to use the app. When i select the track strome or any other option it crashes. This is government site amd was not expecting this from HK government. If you can not make it allow others to do it.
The app is not working at all on iPhone 6. Cannot even open it! Please help!!
App notifications on iPhone 6s (well, at least *this* iPhone 6s) are BROKEN. I have toggled the settings multiple times. I have deleted and re-installed the app multiple times. I have double and triple-checked my notifications settings. And still, despite all this, I never receive notifications for any of my subscribed events. This renders your app next to useless. You need to fix it ASAP. Weather notifications are a crucial service (such as this mornings T3), and they need to work on every device you support. Fix it IMMEDIATELY.
The app downloaded in Chinese and I cannot find an option for English?
It crashes on iPod touch 4/iPad 2 4.3.3 after launching. But its OK on iPhone 3G 4.2.1. When will it support iPad?
Wont let you turn off location based services- which means that it will drain your precious battery even quicker. Typical HK. Typical fail.