What would you say if I told you I could stuff a whole specialized cable network into your iPad, provide just about everything you get from that network, plus add some cool social networking features and tons of special information you can only get online?

Don’t answer too fast. I’m talking about The Weather Channel Max for iPad, and this app is the definition of running before you walk, an exercise guaranteed to make you look awkward and uncoordinated.

But let’s get to the positives first: The Weather Channel Max indeed gives you just about everything The Weather Channel offers. You get forecast videos, which are also available in just about every other weather app out there. But you also get storm videos, national and local weather alerts, tweets from TWC personalities, and live traffic cams. There are weather maps with overlay layers for radar, temperature, rainfall, snowfall, and clouds. And of course, just as in a cable weather broadcast, the maps are in motion.

In addition to all that, the app is free. So how could you be anything but ecstatic with this app?

Let’s start with the “free” part. TWC Max for iPad may be free, but by the time you’ve used it for any length of time, you will probably wish it were not. That’s because TWC Max is chock full of ads. Static ads appear on selected pages at selected times. Every video starts with a commercial. You don’t care; you’re not buying the product; you just want to know if it’s going to rain. Yet there they are.

So even though the app is free, you feel like there’s an opportunity cost just for running it. You know how you will pay a few hundred bucks for a new computer every two or three years because the old one’s just too slow? That’s how you will end up feeling about TWC Max. You’ll gladly pay to get the weather information you want without the time-burn of watching another car commercial.

What else? The videos load slowly. The maps animate slowly. And TWC Max is so notorious for crashing that some iTunes store reviewers have taken to calling it TWC Crash.

There’s a ton of information in TWC Max, but TWC has misjudged how much of it can be delivered without crippling the app. There’s a chance of a sunny future in the forecast, but for right now, this one’s a washout.

There’s a ton of information in The Weather Channel Max, but The Weather Channel has misjudged how much of it can be delivered without crippling the app. There’s a chance of a sunny future in the forecast, but for right now, this one’s a washout.

Unfortunately, no one weather app is likely to please all users, but since The Weather Channel Max app is free, there’s little harm in downloading it and giving it a test run. If you find that it’s not the app for you then you may want to consider AccuWeather instead. You can find just about all the weather information that the lay user needs using with the AccuWeather app. You’ll only need to learn a trick or two in order to make it work with minimal frustration.

Author Bio: Find more of the best weather apps at AppCraver.com, a website dedicated to helping users find apps for the iPhone, iPod and iPad devices.

Category: Computers and Technology
Keywords: app review,weather channel max,weather app,weather ipad,,weather channel,twc max,weather information