A few months ago, Microsoft redesigned the Windows 10 and 11 inbox weather app with new design, information, ads, and MSN News. After a few raised eyebrows from upset customers, Microsoft removed ads and MSN news to give a cleaner and simpler experience. However, not everyone is a fan of the new slightly crammed and overloaded design. If you are one such customer, Lively Weather may become your go-to weather app on your Windows computer.
Check out the amazing Lively Weather app — a brilliant example of using ComputeSharp to create beautiful interactive visual experiences, and also taking advantage of the unique DirectX/Composition interop features that only UWP offers 🚀
— Sergio Pedri (@SergioPedri) October 2, 2023
(https://t.co/VpsgiMlE3r)#csharp #dotnet pic.twitter.com/wWU2KdpkVS
Lively Weather is a third-party UWP app available for free in the Microsoft Store. It uses Open-Meteo weather data to generate forecasts and arrange them in a simple, easy-to-read blocky UI with subtle animations (suspiciously similar to the Weather app on iOS and iPadOS). Available information includes temperature, wind, humidity, pressure, air quality, and sunset/sunrise. Clicking a specific block will open an hourly forecast with a brief explanation.
It also uses the ComputeSharp library for background effects like snow, fog, water droplets, and more. There is also a neat parallax effect when you hover the cursor across the UI, which might look similar to the recently spotted (still yet-to-be-released) AI-based depth effect for the desktop background in Windows 11.
You can download Lively Weather for free from the Microsoft Store. The project is open-source, so everyone with the needed skills can contribute to the development process on GitHub. Note, however, that the eye candy in Lively Weather will slightly tax your GPU. Still, you can adjust the performance-to-quality ratio and brightness level in the settings section to opt for less resource-heavy effects.