Apple is making notable improvements to the built-in Weather app in iOS 16, expanding the available data. You can now tap on any Weather module to get additional useful information that was not previously available in iOS 15.
Tapping on the main hourly or 10-day forecast, for example, brings up a more detailed forecast that lets you see the temperature for each day in a graph view, making it easier to visualize the temperature range and the weather conditions on an hourly basis.
Most of the modules provide additional information on an hourly basis. With the UV Index, users can see the UV estimates throughout the day, and get a visual of when UV exposure will be highest.
There are similar hourly graphs for wind, precipitation, humidity, visibility, and pressure. The sunset/sunrise module provides information on first light, sunrise sunset, last light, and total daylight, along with monthly sunrise and sunset averages. When rain is predicted, there is a rain chart with 10 minute intervals.
Apple offers the same precipitation, temperature, and air quality maps with no added function, but there have been some slight design updates to refine the look.
The updated Weather app also now provides alerts for severe weather, though this is limited to select regions. Apple says that not all Weather features will be available in all countries.
To provide more information through the Weather modules, Apple is leveraging data from Dark Sky, the weather app that it purchased in 2020. Dark Sky on June 6 updated its blog post to clarify that the Dark Sky forecast technology is enhanced and integrated into the Weather forecast, powering the new Weather app.
Dark Sky technology is also behind WeatherKit, a new API for developers. WeatherKit is designed to allow users to incorporate Weather forecast data into their apps. According to Apple, WeatherKit allows apps to offer current weather conditions and 10-day hourly forecasts for temperature, precipitation, wind, UV index, and more, along with minute-by-minute precipitation for the next hour and severe weather alerts in select regions.
As we highlighted earlier this week, Apple with iPadOS 16 is bringing the Weather app to the iPad for the first time. It is identical to the iOS 16 Weather app, but more information is available on one screen thanks to the larger display.
There's also a dedicated Weather app on macOS Ventura, identical to the iOS and iPadOS Weather apps, bringing feature parity across Apple's device lineup.
