In that TidBITS Talk discussion, Richard Tench reported initially that Weather’s notifications seemed to be working. If you can’t depend on a weather app’s precipitation notifications to match reality, at least within some reasonable level of interpretation, there’s no point in using it. By “don’t work,” I mean that they don’t reliably appear when it’s obvious that precipitation is starting or stopping outside, nor do they match notifications from other weather apps like Dark Sky and CARROT Weather (which I configured to use Dark Sky as its weather source). Weather’s notifications don’t work for me, for Tonya, and for at least some people on TidBITS Talk. (Tap Weather Notification Settings to access the in-app settings you can also tap the Make sure that Weather can access your location at all times, that notifications are enabled, and that they’re enabled for the locations you want within the Weather app itself. Assuming you’ve launched Weather at least once and agreed it could send you notifications, start in Settings > Weather, which is a new option, cleverly hidden between Stocks and Translate, since Apple still refuses to alphabetize-see “ Bad Apple #2: Alphabetize Settings in iOS” (21 February 2018). After all, most people who aren’t as weather-involved as I am are happy to rely on Weather, and surely they’d appreciate next-hour precipitation notifications. So even though Josh lured me over to using the “crazy-powerful” CARROT Weather (which is both crazy and powerful see his “ CARROT Weather Predicts Cloudy with a Chance of Snark,” 22 January 2018), I’ve been curious to see how Apple would enhance Weather with Dark Sky’s capabilities. These notifications were Dark Sky’s killer feature, as I realized the first few times it alerted me to imminent rain while we were at a picnic or festival (see “ Dark Sky 5 Offers Hyperlocal Weather Forecasts for iOS,” 7 August 2015). The Weather app in iOS 15īut there was one more promised feature from Dark Sky in the iOS 15 version of Weather: next-hour precipitation notifications. Sure, that 5-day look-ahead wasn’t guaranteed, but it gave you a sense of how weather systems were moving toward you. The maps are welcome, but Dark Sky guesses where weather systems will go either 1 hour (zoomed in) or 5 days (zoomed out) into the future, whereas Weather looks only 1 hour or 12 hours into the future, depending on zoom level. More functionally, Weather now provides animated weather maps, a better 10-day forecast, and tiles of weather data that can be extremely helpful, like rainfall in the next 24 hours (several of us have experienced significant flooding this year). Snazzy, but I’m once again put in mind of that cheeky checkbox in Eudora from many years ago: “ Waste CPU cycles drawing trendy 3D junk.” If you have an iPhone with an A12 Bionic or later, Weather’s animated backgrounds now boast thousands of variations that more accurately represent the sun position, clouds, and precipitation. With iOS 15, Apple redesigned Weather significantly. iOS 14’s Weather wasn’t bad, but it didn’t match up to Dark Sky. But as any Dark Sky user knows, such features barely scratch the surface of what Dark Sky could do, with an animated radar view that could peer into the future, hyperlocal precipitation notifications, and other notifications that provided a daily summary, umbrella and sunscreen reminders, and more. iOS 14 added a next-hour precipitation chart, government alerts of severe weather, and the chance of precipitation in the multi-day weather forecast. Perhaps due to the acquisition happening right at the start of the pandemic, Dark Sky features were slow to reach Apple’s bundled Weather app. However, the Dark Sky iOS app will remain available to purchase and continue to work, at least until Apple builds its functionality into iOS. Unsurprisingly, Apple shut down Dark Sky’s Android and Wear OS apps on 1 August 2020, providing a full refund to subscribers, and it also shut down forecasts, maps, and embeds on the Dark Sky website on that date. Nearly two years ago, Apple bought the hyperlocal weather company Dark Sky (see “ Apple Acquires Dark Sky Weather Service and App,” 31 March 2020). Weather in iOS 15 Gains Precipitation Notifications (But Do They Work Reliably?) #1668: Updated Rapid Security Responses, OS public betas, screen saver bug fixed, “Red Team Blues” book review.#1669: OS security updates, ambiguity of emoji, small business payments with Melio, Twitter now X.#1670: Arc Web browser hits 1.0 release, “Do You Use It?” polls about Apple features.#1671: Apple Q3 2023 earnings, new Beats headphones and earbuds, Stage Manager adoption rate, do you use Spotlight?.1672: The hidden power of Google Sheets, Launchpad usage levels, Emergency SOS via satellite in the Maui fires, do you use proxy icons?.
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