Weather app is so bad

[kave]

How can the weather app be so close to useless? With all its screen real estate it cant tell me the wind strength or how much it is going to rain. Its focused on UV and other pointless stuff.
The large wind map rarely shows anything but a small number with the lowest wind strentgh at the exact moment.

 

[boss.king]

Mine has wind speed, gust speed, and wind direction, as well as precipitation for the last 24hrs and when rain is next expected, and I can tap into eitehr for more details. Did you scroll down? There's a lot of into in there.

 

[BB1970]

You realize you can tap the tiles right?

 

[parameter]

How can the weather app be so close to useless? With all its screen real estate it cant tell me the wind strength or how much it is going to rain. Its focused on UV and other pointless stuff.
The large wind map rarely shows anything but a small number with the lowest wind strentgh at the exact moment.

Completely agree. I live where we have severe weather, very severe. Since the AccuWeather and most other weather apps have gone so completely ad-crazy and basically now useless, few options remain.

I can't believe how limited Apple's weather app is. And like you mentioned, so much pointless crap in there that I personally don't care about or need dedicated sections for (air quality. Well, not much I can do about that).

Also, they finally introduced a minimal wind layer like you said. BUT, the layers can't be overlayed?!? I want and need to see at least precipitation and wind at the same time, and would love even more except there aren't any other useful layers to even pick from.

My go-to app has been MyRadar for years. But recently it looks like they're now trying to take that public (or some form of it). And keep advertising and asking for me to basically buy shares. And yes, I am a Premium paying subscriber to MyRadar, for now at least. And with it, I can overlay necessary weather layers.

Apple's weather app could've been so great. But like nearly every Apple app these days, it basically sucks. I'm absolutely on the "Hire a free intern, give them 1 week to make one of your apps great, and it'll blow anything they currently have" (Other than FCP or Logic). But, they spend 10 OS releases tweaking things and just slowly making them all worse than they even started with.

100% agree, the Apple weather app is just so dumb at this point. They purchased Dark Sky, for what? They should've left it alone, what a waste of an acquisition.

 

[auxbuss]

How can the weather app be so close to useless? With all its screen real estate it cant tell me the wind strength or how much it is going to rain.

But it does tell you those things – and a lot more – for today and the next nine days. Just tap the day you want info for… and there it is: Conditions; UV Index; Wind; Precipitation; Feels Like; Humidity; Visibility; and Pressure.

The app has its limitations, for sure, but it does provide the basic data you're looking for and a lot more.

 

[aknabi]

But it does tell you those things – and a lot more – for today and the next nine days. Just tap the day you want info for… and there it is: Conditions; UV Index; Wind; Precipitation; Feels Like; Humidity; Visibility; and Pressure.

The app has its limitations, for sure, but it does provide the basic data you're looking for and a lot more.

Basic data... it's worse than useless data...

Right now (and this happens about 50% of the time) it's been saying it's sunny all day and will be until 8pm at my location... it has been cloudy with off and on rain all day.

I guess they're testing how much of a true believer you are and your susceptibility to the Apple Reality Distortion Field.

Yes, it is Sunny... I'm using my eyes wrong.

 

[AsherN]

Basic data... it's worse than useless data...

Right now (and this happens about 50% of the time) it's been saying it's sunny all day and will be until 8pm at my location... it has been cloudy with off and on rain all day.

I guess they're testing how much of a true believer you are and your susceptibility to the Apple Reality Distortion Field.

Yes, it is Sunny... I'm using my eyes wrong.

You do realize that the app relies on data from a weather station for real time, and forecasts from a weather service, right? And that weather is hard to predict and changes from location to location?

 

[StumpyBloke]

Basic data... it's worse than useless data...

Right now (and this happens about 50% of the time) it's been saying it's sunny all day and will be until 8pm at my location... it has been cloudy with off and on rain all day.

I guess they're testing how much of a true believer you are and your susceptibility to the Apple Reality Distortion Field.

Yes, it is Sunny... I'm using my eyes wrong.

Report the errors.

 

[RichP74]

YEah, I was pretty disappointed Apple didn't overhaul it with iOS 18. It really is horrible, and for me it was a double kick in the nuts because my go-to was Dark Sky before Apple shuttered it.

 

[HDFan]

I find it to be quite inaccurate. Right now it shows a temperature 10 degrees below the value at the nearest weather station.

For best forecast accuracy David Swain recommends the National Weather Service:

National Weather Service

forecast.weather.gov

 

[ThrowerGB]

I find it to be quite inaccurate. Right now it shows a temperature 10 degrees below the value at the nearest weather station.

For best forecast accuracy David Swain recommends the National Weather Service:

National Weather Service

forecast.weather.gov

I agree with @HDFan . I'm a former NWS employee. i.e., I'm not a meteorologist, rather I'm a hydrologist who worked in the area of flood and streamflow forecasting. That means some of the more sophisticated weather information on the web isn't much use to me. And yes, from time to time I have quibbles about the NWS web displays and I let NWS know using links on their websites. I have to go to other NWS sites for some things. But weather.gov is free and it gives most of what I want to see.
I do have the advantage of having used weather.gov for many years (as well as web pages from other countries) so I'm familiar with how to get the info I want. Water, weather and climate information involves a large amount of information. Which means having to make decisions about the basic elements the user wants, and that's not easy. There are quite a few weather apps out there. Many of them from people trying to run a profitable business There are also some put together by government entities but they're generally lacking in the comprehensiveness of the NWS web pages.
One non-NWS site I really like is the Washington Post's "The Weather Gang". Of course they focus on their local area (D.C., Northern VA, and Southern MD), but they're worth looking at. They do cover most of the country but not in the same detail everywhere. They're different from most other weather sites in-as-much as they're really excellent communicators. They don't give just the weather elements, but they're enthusiastic meteorologists who put a lot of effort helping users understand what's going on behind the numbers, without becoming boring.

 

[Adora]

I can only speak for the Mac App, because I don't use my iPhone for weather.

The data Apple Weather is getting is very strange in my region. It started 3 or 4 years ago. I can see the rain or snow outside and it shows no rain or snow for the whole day for example. When it's already raining for an hour it might switch to rain too.
Or it shows clouds for the whole day, while I see sunshine and things like that. Temperature is also always not identical to my own Thermometer sometimes it differs several degrees celsius, especially if it's hot in summer.

It doesn't really change anything if I use location services or enter the location myself.

Every other weather app is also displaying several locations for the city I am living in to choose from, when I want to enter it manually.

Apple is using several weather stations too here. But I only see that when location services is turned on and the manual one is still there for comparison, there are very little differences sometimes. I think the iPhone app at least shows the part of the city, when location service is turned on. On Mac both have the exact same name with different data.

 

[colodane]

I've actually found that Apple Weather is the best app I've tried for short-term (1 to 10 hours) forecasts. For longer range forecasts I do prefer others, especially WeatherUnderground.

But for what will happen in the next few hours in my location, Apple Weather is uncannily accurate. This perhaps may be due to the number of stations and sensors in my immediate area (fairly populated). Maybe it isn't nearly as good in other locations with fewer data sources ??

 

[aknabi]

You do realize that the app relies on data from a weather station for real time, and forecasts from a weather service, right? And that weather is hard to predict and changes from location to location?

Here's the thing... I have another weather app, and then one specifically for The Netherlands (and Buienradar can give me a zoomed view into my neighborhood)... guess what, they're spot on... even the Verge did a spot on how truly awful Apple weather is compared to everybody else. Yes I still use Apple weather as an Apple fan and dev want to keep tabs on how they're doing.

There's no excuse for Apple not using/being close to/at best of the best for weather... they're at the bottom... and should be called out for being so (note I also use Android and it's far better)... they should get a team in Northern Europe to head it up... quality weather data is more important than quality voice calls here.

 

[The1Biz]

I recently ditched it due to the tracking aspect. Is there any real reason for that? I don't think so, sorry Apple.

I bookmarked weather.gov which I find more reliable and easy to use. It's not an app per se but as a web page it give me anything I need.

 

[philosopherdog]

weather is brilliant. sounds like a user error.