Over the past 12 months, our product team of Andrew Murray, Erik Smith, Joel Gratz, and I have been working behind-the-scenes to bring you the next generation of OpenSnow. We took years of user feedback, brought together our wish list of ideas, and worked through hundreds of hours of discussion to bring you our first release of the redesigned OpenSnow iOS app and now, the redesigned Android app.

What's New

This article will provide a broad overview of what's new in the redesign, what's been removed compared to the previous version, and our favorite new features.

Favorites

The Favorites (previously called "Home") is the first major change that you'll encounter when you first log into your Free or All-Access account. 'Your Daily Snow Forecasts' is still the top item. Simply tap and you'll be reading the latest update.

The next section is 'Your Cams'. We are excited to show your favorite cams as soon as you open the app. This is available to All-Access subscribers, so if you're looking for the convenience of following your favorite Snow Stake Cams, upgrade to All-Access for $19/year.

Further down the Favorites tab, you will find the redesigned 'Your Mountains' section. Right off the bat, you will notice that the old table-view is no longer available in the redesign. This has been a great feature but there is simply not enough room in the app to see the big picture.

The old table-view was very granular (good at times) but we have found that we often miss the bigger picture (eg. 10" in 5 days).

The new 'Your Mountains' layout was built to quickly check the latest snow report in the morning and the forecast for the next 3 days. We designed the card so that you could wake up, swipe a few times, and make a decision on where to ski.

To view more days or to compare across many mountains, simply tap the 'Compare Your Mountains' button. This provides quick access to compare the latest Forecast (next 1, 5, and 10 days) and Conditions (last 24 hours, 5 days, % ski area open) in a list or map view, along with a breakout of the Cams for each mountain.

If a mountain catches your eye, tap on the 'Forecast Graph' or 'Condition Details' link to see a quick pop-up of the 1-10 Day Forecast or Conditions Report for that mountain.

The final feature that we love on the Favorites tab is the ability to save and follow 'Your Season Passes'.

Whether you have the Epic, Ikon, Mountain Collective, or any other pass, the Top 5-Day Forecast and Top 24-Hour Report will always be updated to quickly give you an idea of where the snow is stacking up on your pass(es).

Finally, the order of the Favorites tab is up for debate. Some people want to see the Daily Snow Forecasts up front, others want to go straight to the Mountains, while many folks just want to see the Snow Stake Cams. Ideally, we want to allow you to set the order, but this is a feature that will be saved for a future date.

Stay tuned for more updates!

Mountains

Upon initial load of any individual Mountain, we provide a preview of the next 6 hours under the Forecast tab. Free users can see 6 hours of the hourly data, while All-Access subscribers can see the next 3 days. The hourly data is a new data set for OpenSnow and it is currently only available for mountains in the United States.

Clicking the 'Full Hourly Forecast' button provides access to the chance of precipitation (including precip type), temperature, wind speed, wind gust, and cloud cover %. Use this data to time the next storm and dress appropriately for changing conditions on the mountain.

Further down any Mountain under the Forecast tab, we vertically stacked the 1-10 Day Forecast. The previous version made you click on each day, while the new version provides all of the data right on one screen.

Tapping the 'Full 10-Day Forecast' button provides access to the latest snow forecast for each day and night for the next 10 days, alerts (powder days, mixed precipitation, rain, high winds), temperature, snowfall trend, snow level, wind speed, wind gust, and cloud cover %.

Looking for the latest Conditions and Mountain Cams? They're still here and even better than before. Simply tap each tab at the top of the screen and scroll through to find the latest updates. 

Explore

In the previous version, we provided a list of hundreds of mountains for you to choose from, with no ability to filter by region or country. We also had a separate tab for the 'Powder Finder' as the place to go for the Top Forecasts & Reports.

This has now been renamed to 'Explore' and we have combined the mountains list and 'Powder Finder' into an all-encompassing breakdown of every piece of information you need to find the deepest snow. 

Top Forecasts? Check. Deepest Reports? Check. Snow Stake Cams? Check. Just browsing for Nearby Mountains or States? It's all there in the new app, with the ability to compare in a list or map view.

Once you choose your Top Forecasts, Deepest Reports, Countries / States / Regions, or Season Passes, tap on the blue floating button near the bottom to switch to map or list view or sort the data from highest to lowest.

News

This section of our website has been absent from the app until now. Browse the News tab to find the latest industry updates, trip reports, ski videos, and much more.

Removed Facebook Log In

Due to privacy and technical challenges, we have removed the ability to log in with Facebook in the new app. If you used Facebook to log in with the previous version, please reset your password in the Settings tab.

Feedback & Support

Your feedback is incredibly important to us so please reach out to [email protected] and we will respond as quickly as possible!

If you love the new app, please share your love by taking a moment to rate it on the Google Play Store.

SAM COLLENTINE

Director of Operations & Meteorologist