Comparison

Weather #1 Interactive Widgets vs Heliograph

Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.

Head to head
About

Weather #1 Interactive Widgets

Get live weather updates and advanced forecasts directly on your iPhone's home screen, Dynamic Island, and Lock Screen. Track storms, hurricanes, and view detailed radar maps to plan your activities with confidence.

Highlights
  • Dynamic Island widgets
  • Lock Screen widgets
  • Home Screen widgets
  • Storm and hurricane tracking
  • 14-day hourly/daily forecasts
  • Real-time weather alerts
  • Radar overlay maps
Features
Currently charting
Read full description

Best Weather app for iPhone. All advanced home screen widgets available for iPhone: - Dynamic Island - Lock Screen Widgets - Home Screen Widgets Stay prepared for any situation with our advanced storm and hurricane tracking features, perfect for planning your day, weekend, or vacation. Get access to all the weather updates you need from your home screen. Get current weather on Dynamic Island. With our app, you can plan up to 14 days in advance with detailed hourly and daily forecasts. Stay informed and safe with real-time alerts for extreme weather conditions. Our radar overlay allows you to view high-resolution maps of rain and snow areas in your location, making it easy to plan your activities. You can also customize your widgets to match your preferences. You can unlock access to unique storm tracker provides you with the speed, velocity, and directions of every storm cell approaching your location. You can also view hyper-local weather conditions for all your favorite locations. We also offer paid access to air quality reports and fire reports to keep you informed of any potential hazards. Additionally, you can get tracker maps for 2024 hurricanes. Our service provides additional hourly and daily weather data, more radar layers, the ability to change weather providers, more widgets, and more Apple Watch complications. It’s auto-recurring. By subscribing, you authorize us to charge the subscription cost corresponding to the selected subscription length to the iTunes Account. You can cancel at any time. Subscription automatically renews unless auto-renew is turned off at least 24 hours before the end of the current period. The account will be charged for renewal within 24 hours prior to the end of the current period. Subscriptions may be managed by the user, and auto-renewal may be turned off by going to the user’s Account Settings after purchase. Our privacy policy can be found at: http://byssmobile.com/priv/priv.html Our terms of use can be found at: http://byssmobile.com/priv/terms.html. Any unused portion of a free trial period, if offered, will be forfeited when the user purchases

About

Heliograph

Features
Read full description

Heliograph is a focused, native space-weather app for Solar Cycle 25. It pulls current conditions and short-horizon forecasts directly from public government sources and shows them plainly — with an honest timestamp on every value. What "live" means here Heliograph shows real conditions and short-range forecasts — not millisecond telemetry. While the app is open it refreshes on each source's own cadence, and every reading carries an "as of" timestamp so you always know how fresh it is. The freshest inputs come from NOAA's SOLAR-1 spacecraft at L1: in-situ solar wind within about 5 minutes, CME imagery within about 30 minutes — that is the ceiling, and we never pretend to beat it. Typical refreshes: aurora oval ~5 min, solar wind ~60 s, Kp ~15 min, NOAA G/S/R scales ~5–10 min, X-ray flares ~60 s, solar cycle daily. When solar-wind data is unavailable, the aurora forecast honestly falls back to a Kp-driven nowcast with reduced lead time, and Bz-dependent storm triggers are paused and labelled — we show the degraded state instead of hiding it. Ambient Mode — a living aurora The signature experience: a full-screen, data-reactive ambient that means something. One derived intensity drives everything — calm teal when quiet, brightening greens as activity builds, a magenta-violet push in a real storm. Pick your scene: a 3D aurora globe with the live OVATION oval over Earth's night side (australis first), the live Sun from NASA SDO, or a flowing solar-wind field. On Apple TV it's the lean-back living-room hero; on iPhone you can AirPlay or screen-mirror it to any TV. Built to run for hours with burn-in and thermal care — and it always eases to a calm fallback rather than fake a storm from stale data. Aurora australis, first-class Most aurora apps treat the Southern Hemisphere as an afterthought. Heliograph renders aurora australis first, alongside borealis — a real polar map with the auroral oval, local darkness/terminator, and your own viewline, plus a forecast scrub over the next 90 minutes. A "where do I go tonight?" ground map shows the visibility line across your region and how far toward the pole you'd need to travel. The infrastructure-impact lens Heliograph translates the current storm level into plain-language impact on what storms actually touch: the power grid (geomagnetically induced currents), GPS/GNSS accuracy, and HF radio. A world impact map places those effects on the day/night globe (colour-blind-safe). It is deliberately non-alarmist — most days, even minor storms, pass with no noticeable effect, and the app says so. Storm tracking & alerts A quiet → watch → storm state machine reads solar wind and Kp and shows exactly which triggers fired, with a Sun → L1 → Earth cinematic of the real arrival lead time. On iPhone, while you have Heliograph open, a storm Live Activity surfaces a significant storm on your Lock Screen — no account, no tracking. You can also opt into on-device "aurora likely tonight" alerts. On every surface: Lock Screen and StandBy widgets, a Control Center control, plain-language explainers, a colour legend, and a recent-activity solar time-lapse. Privacy, by design No account. No analytics. No tracking. No third-party SDKs. Data is fetched directly from public NOAA and NASA endpoints — Heliograph runs no servers of its own and stores nothing about you. Your location, if you grant it, is used only on-device to draw your aurora viewline — never stored or sent anywhere. Data sources NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC) — SOLAR-1 at L1, the GOES satellites, and ground stations — plus NASA SDO solar imagery via the Helioviewer Project. Heliograph is not affiliated with or endorsed by NOAA or NASA. Ambient Mode includes solar imagery, hourly Moon visualization, latest published Earth photography, dated cloud and thermal-detection maps, Aurora Globe and Solar Wind. Image dates and source details are available in the app. These views are not live video or emergency warnings.

Screenshots

Weather #1 Interactive Widgets4 screens
Heliograph2 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is in-app purchases: Heliograph at none against Weather #1 Interactive Widgets's 5. Weather #1 Interactive Widgets's advantage is update cadence (weekly vs every 2 months) and chart position (#167 vs unranked). On price, ads and device support there is nothing between them.

Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

Both are free to download. Weather #1 Interactive Widgets sells 5 in-app purchases, starting at $4.99 per 7 days. Heliograph asks for nothing beyond the download.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Weather #1 Interactive Widgets ships an update weekly, Heliograph every 2 months. The most recent releases landed on October 16, 2026 and October 8, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard4 real differences · 7 level
Weather #1 Interactive Widgets versus Heliograph: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterWeather #1 Interactive WidgetsHeliograph
PriceFreeFree
Rating4.4 (7.3K ratings) — better—
Positive reviews73.3% of reviews—
Number of ratings7.3K — better—
Update frequencyWeekly — betterEvery 2 months
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesYesNo — better
MonetizationFree with in-app purchases—
Best chart rank#167 — better—
DevicesiPhone, iPad, Apple TV, Apple Watch — betteriPhone, Apple TV, Apple Watch
Requires iOS17.0 — better26.0
Further details — not scored
Size236 MB16 MB
Age rating4+4+
Developerbyss mobileAphelion Engineering Pty Ltd

Bugs and requests

Weather #1 Interactive Widgets

Reported bugs

4 issues
  • Widgets not updating properly
  • Map layers not functioning as expected
  • Subscription issues and billing problems
  • Compatibility problems on older devices

Requested features

5 requests
  • Dark mode option
  • Customizable widget layouts
  • Live weather radar on home screen
  • Ability to share weather data
  • Integration with smart home devices

Heliograph

Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.

In-app purchases

5 purchases

Weather #1 Interactive Widgets

Subscriptions5
  • Premium weather service3 Days trial$4.997 Days
  • Premium Weather$4.997 Days
  • Premium Weather service3 Days trial$5.997 Days
Show 2 more
  • Premium Weather service$9.991 Year
  • Premium Weather service$19.991 Year
None

Heliograph

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is Weather #1 Interactive Widgets free?
Weather #1 Interactive Widgets is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is Heliograph free?
Heliograph is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Do Weather #1 Interactive Widgets or Heliograph have ads?
Neither Weather #1 Interactive Widgets nor Heliograph shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Weather #1 Interactive Widgets or Heliograph?
Weather #1 Interactive Widgets ships an update weekly, and Heliograph every 2 months. Most recently, Weather #1 Interactive Widgets was updated on October 16, 2026 and Heliograph on October 8, 2026.

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