Pocket Storm

The Pocket Storm is an environmental audio player which streams an hour-long, ever-changing thunderstorm — just for you.

It starts with a calm summer night. Soon you’ll hear thunder in the distance, then wind and a spatter of rain. After half an hour you’ll be in the thick of the storm. By the end of the hour it will have faded into the night again. Then the cycle begins again.

The Pocket Storm is not like other environmental audio apps. Every thunderstorm is different! Wind, rain, thunder — even chirping crickets — every sound is chosen from a library, with subtle variations of pitch and timing. The Pocket Storm weaves these elements into a tapestry of sound which will never repeat.

Pocket Storm is available now for iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch.
Download it for the new Apple TV as well!

• A storm that approaches, surrounds you, and then drifts away.
• Elegant, uncluttered interface.
• Set the storm’s duration anywhere from a sixty-minute monster down to a five-minute squall...
  • ...or hold the skies in place, and listen to the same weather for as long as you want.
• Listen with headphones...
  • ...or send audio to an AppleTV or other AirPlay device on your wireless network.
  • ...or run it directly on your new AppleTV! Available on the tvOS App Store.
• Runs as a background audio app.
  • ...(No Internet connection required!)

Use the Pocket Storm for white noise, tuning out distractions; for relaxation, meditation, or going to sleep. Tune your desert to rain, or your city street to chirping crickets.

Sample Audio

These audio files were captured directly from Pocket Storm.

Remember that these are only examples! Every time you launch Pocket Storm, a new audio environment is generated. The tone of your storm — or calm — may be quite different.

Calm Interlude

(MP3 file, 16 seconds)

The Leading Edge

(MP3 file, 15 seconds)

Height of the Storm

(MP3 file, 25 seconds)

Storm Aftermath

(MP3 file, 20 seconds)

How It Works

The Pocket Storm is built on Boodler technology. Boodler is an open-source soundscape project which I invented years ago. Boodler is designed for any kind of complex audio environment — weather, traffic, alien worlds — but I’ve never developed it as it really deserves. The Pocket Storm is my first attempt to bring Boodler to a consumer audience.

Thanks to Owen Williams for creating the first Boodler thunderstorm soundscape, more than a decade ago.

The app screen background is derived from a cloud photograph by Joe Thomissen, 2012. (Creative Commons Attribution license.)

The Pocket Storm could not exist without Freesound.org, a collaborative database of Creative Commons sound. All the sounds in the app are sampled from Freesound contributions. (Creative Commons Attribution, Sampling Plus, and Zero licenses.) For a list of sounds and attributions, please see this page.

A percentage of the App Store revenue from Pocket Storm will be donated to the Freesound project.

(What percentage? I’m currently thinking ten percent. That’s subject to change as circumstances warrant. I’m zarf on the Freesound site, by the way.)

Pocket Storm is a Zarfhome Production.