12091 Download in 9 Days
Weather version 1.0 was released on 9 Aug (the release day 2 Aug in App Store is wrong, because the contract was pending). Until the latest report (17 Aug), there are total 12091 download!
Technically, HK Weather is a helloworld level program. Be honest, it is really my helloworld during the experiment with SDK. If you know the basic of the SDK, you will find it is a hybrid application, a combination of native app and web. It is very similar to OSX’s widget concept. Actually I built the HK Weather Web App for my personal use last year. HKO doesn’t provide a standard API for 3rd party use. A server side script is needed to run periodically to get, parse and cache the data from HKO’s webpage. A web page as output become the most direct and easy method to present the information. That is HK Weather Zero I think. 🙂 But it has a problem, even you saved the link to the home, you still need to launch the safari, a new tab, and wait the page load.
The SDK provided a solution to enhance its usability. It allows you embed html component into native app. The current version 1.x is the marry of web and native client. It gives a proof of concept quickly and able to make rapid changes in this baby status of the app. The result is really good I think.
However, this structure limited the further development. (Who will plan the new version for a helloworld?) Next major version (2.0) will be completely rewrite (I hope), to enable caching, better UI etc.
Please be patient. Thank you for all your support!