Apple's native iOS, iPadOS weather app is more informative than you might think
We've seen how complex weather apps have become over the years. Did you ever see how many weather apps are available in the App Store or the Google Play Store? In the past, you could get by with one weather app, but now you need one for your region and at least another for hyper-local forecasts. Some weather apps will include a radar to help you get a better idea about precipitation in your area, and there are the big names that have been around forever such as The Weather Channel and AccuWeather.
Apple's native weather app has improved greatly over the years
Apple has improved its weather app over the years and the acquisition of hyperlocal Dark Sky in 2020 led Apple to shut down the Android version of the app on July 1st, 2020. The iOS version of the Dark Sky app, which was the top weather app in the App Store for some time, was shut by Apple at the start of this year. Dark Sky was known for its highly accurate local forecasts which it put together using crowdsourced weather data.
Apple's native weather app overs plenty of vital data, graphs, and information
Apple took the hyerlocal forecasting process offered by Dark Sky and is using it on its native iOS weather app. With the release of iOS 17 and iPadOS 17, Apple has added new features. For example, opening the native weather app and scrolling down to the 10-day forecast now allows you to tap on any one of those 10 days to get a more enhanced look at the one particular day that you tapped on. This is a new feature called "Conditions."
With "Conditions," you'll see a graph for the day you selected that will show the forecast temperature during certain times of the day. A graph underneath that one will show you when any precipitation is expected followed by a Daily Summary. For example, in Salem Massachusetts for next Thursday, the summary notes that "Thursday's low will be 54 degrees at 12am, and the high will be 68 degrees between 2pm and 3pm." Nice to have some warm weather this late in October!
And if I want to see the "Conditions" page for any other of the 10 upcoming days, I can simply swipe to the left to go forward or to the right to go back.
You can learn more information about the Air Quality where you live by tapping the Air Quality heading in the native weather app. Tapping the heading will show you a map with the Air Quality Index (AQI) in your area and will compare the current reading with the previous day's number. It will also give you data about pollutants such as noting that Ozone is typically elevated due to traffic, fossil fuel combustion, and fires and can be transported far distances.
How to find more information from the iOS and iPadOS 17 native weather app
Tapping on the heading of any of the individual headings in the native weather app will give you more information about that category. The headings include:
- Visibility
- Humidity
- Pressure
- Feels Like
- Wind
- Sunrise/Sunset
- Averages (Temperature/Precipitation)
- UV Index
- Moon
As we said, tapping on any one of these headings shows you beautifully done graphs and historical information. One of the most useful is the data you see when you tap the Averages heading and have the page on temperature. You can see a graph that shows the average high and low temperature for each month in the city that you're looking up.
If you tap under the Moon heading, not only do you see a gorgeous image of what the current phase of the moon looks like, but a calendar shows you which phase the moon will be in for every day of the current month along with the dates for the New Moon and the Full Moon.
Even if you already pay for a weather app that you use on your iPhone or iPad, the native weather app on both devices is chock full of weather information that will come in handy. All Apple needs to add is a radar and many iOS and iPadOS users might start deleting their paid weather apps.
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