Forecast Bar and VoiceOver, in short
- Screen reader
- Forecast Bar is built for VoiceOver on iPhone, iPad, Mac and Apple TV, using standard VoiceOver gestures — no app-specific gesture language to learn.
- Named readings
- Every value states what it measures. A humidity tile reads "Humidity, 93 percent, humid", not "93%".
- Whole rows at once
- A day in the forecast is one swipe, not seven: "Saturday, August 15, Fair, high 83 degrees Fahrenheit, low 64 degrees Fahrenheit, 20 percent chance of precipitation."
- Charts
- The next-hour precipitation chart is described in words — when rain starts, when it peaks and how hard, when it stops — rather than being skipped as an unreadable graphic.
- Custom layouts
- Forecast Bar lets you choose which readings appear on the home screen, in the hourly timeline and in compact rows. Every one of those choices is named aloud; rearranging the app does not create silent sections.
- Rotor actions
- Actions that are a long-press or a second tap for a sighted user — switching a row between chance-of-rain and expected amount, changing the row style — are offered as VoiceOver rotor actions.
- Advertising
- There is none. No banners, no interstitials, no pop-ups to dismiss or navigate around, and no advertising SDKs in the app.
- Reduce Motion
- Turning on Reduce Motion holds the animated sky still. The scene still shows the weather; it stops moving.
- System text sizes
- Not supported yet. Forecast Bar has its own text-size control in Settings, but it does not currently follow the system Larger Text setting. This is a known gap and is being worked on.
- Radar map
- The radar's controls are labelled and operable, but the map itself is not explorable by touch with VoiceOver.
Open the app. The weather is the first thing you hear.
VoiceOver normally lands on whatever is first in the layout, which in most weather apps is a menu button or a settings gear. Forecast Bar moves focus to the current conditions when the forecast arrives, so opening the app answers the question you opened it to ask. The toolbar is still one swipe to the left, exactly where it was.
- Current conditions read on launch, without swiping
- Temperature, feels-like, conditions, high and low in one phrase
- Nothing is reordered — the rest of the screen stays where it is
- A background refresh never yanks focus back mid-sentence
"93 percent" is not an answer. "Humidity, 93 percent, humid" is.
Forecast Bar's home screen tiles can be set to hide their titles to fit more in. That is a visual space saving, and it used to mean the spoken version lost the one word that made the number mean anything. Every tile now names itself aloud whether or not the label is drawn.
- Each reading names its measurement, in both tile layouts
- Units are spoken as words — "degrees Fahrenheit", "miles per hour", "inches"
- Compass directions are spoken, not spelled: "north-northwest", not "N-N-W"
- Tides, pressure trends and air quality read as sentences
The rain chart is described, not silently skipped.
The next-hour precipitation chart is sixty bars. Bars are shapes, and shapes carry no text, so a screen reader has nothing to say about them — which is why this chart is silent in most weather apps. Forecast Bar describes the shape of the hour instead.
- "Rain starting in 12 minutes, heaviest in 30 minutes, moderate, ending in 48 minutes"
- Axis labels are hidden rather than read as six meaningless stops
- The hour-by-hour timeline reads each hour as one phrase
- Chart and timeline views are both reachable and labelled
No ads. Not fewer ads — none.
Ask people who rely on a screen reader what makes a weather app unusable and advertising comes up before anything technical: pop-ups that steal focus, interstitials with a close button you have to hunt for, banners between you and the forecast. Forecast Bar has no advertising in it and bundles no advertising SDKs.
- No banners, interstitials or pop-ups anywhere in the app
- No advertising or third-party analytics SDKs bundled
- Nothing that grabs focus while you are reading
- Subscription-funded, so the forecast is the product
Alerts read as alerts, and open in one action.
The alert card is the most safety-critical thing in the app, so it is announced as one clear statement and behaves like a button rather than a decorative panel that happens to respond to taps. Dismissing an alert is a separate, named control — you cannot lose an alert by missing the card.
- "Weather alert, Tornado Warning, until 5:15 PM" as one phrase
- Announced as a button, with a hint that it opens the full alert
- "Dismiss alert" is its own labelled control, not an unnamed X
- Alert counts are spoken: "Weather alerts, 3 alerts"
The Mac menu bar says what it is showing.
On the Mac, the menu bar item is the entire app. Navigating the menu bar with VoiceOver, it now names the reading it is displaying and its value — including in the icon-only styles, where nothing on screen names it either.
- Each menu bar item names its data point and value
- Combined mode composes all of them into one readable phrase
- Settings, refresh and Visualize Day controls are labelled
- The same treatment on iPhone, iPad, Mac and Apple TV
What doesn't work yet
Two things are worth knowing before you decide, because you would find them in the first ten minutes anyway.
System text sizes. Forecast Bar does not yet follow iOS's Larger Text setting. There is a text-size control inside Settings › Theme & Visual Style, and it works, but if you have set a large text size system-wide the app will not pick it up on its own. This is a real gap, we know about it, and it is being worked on.
The radar map. The radar's controls — play and pause, layers, zoom, the legend, the timeline — are labelled and operable. The map itself is a single element; you cannot move around it with VoiceOver and hear what is where. If exploring radar by touch is the feature you need, there are apps built specifically for that, and we would rather tell you now than have you find out after paying.
If you hit something else that doesn't read properly, please tell us at support@higherbarapps.com. Reports from people actually using a screen reader are the reason this list is as short as it is.
Common questions
Does Forecast Bar actually work with VoiceOver, or just partly?
Do I have to learn app-specific gestures?
Are there sections I won't be able to reach?
Does it support Larger Text?
What about Reduce Motion?
Is there advertising?
Which platforms get this?
How much does Forecast Bar cost?
Try it with VoiceOver before you pay for it.
Every subscription starts with a 7-day free trial, which is more than enough time to put a screen reader through the whole app.
Free to download; live weather requires a subscription, and every subscription includes a 7-day free trial for new subscribers. Mac and iOS plans are separate; Apple TV is included with Forecast Bar Gold on iOS.
More from Forecast Bar
Severe weather alerts
NWS and Environment Canada warnings at the moment of issue, with critical alerts that break through Do Not Disturb.
Weather radar for iPhone & iPad
Animated radar with future radar, live lightning, satellite, and warning polygons on the map.
Compare plans
What Silver, Gold, Plus and Pro each include, side by side.