Do You Use It? iPhone Weather Apps

We’re closing in on 200 replies in the poll that’s trying to figure out what percentage of people use Apple’s Weather (it’s looking like about 60%), and I’ve collected what I believe are the top 20 other apps mentioned. Actually, 19, because it became clear that a lot of people who use Apple’s Weather app also use something else, so it’s included as well. This poll is designed to tease out which apps are the most popular so those looking for a new one have the collective wisdom of TidBITS readers to guide them.

I know this list is not exhaustive—Discourse polls max out at 20 answers. When I write these polls up in TidBITS, I plan to include those that didn’t merit inclusion here, a section on country-specific apps, a list of apps focused on a particular activity (sailing, aviation, astronomy, air quality, etc), and something about the apps people use with their personal weather stations.

My favourite was “BBC weather”, but when they started to request a login before you’d see the forecast I had to go elsewhere. For the moment I use Apple Weather, but I find some of the user interface incomprehensible.

I had one thought after voting… I use Siri for a lot of quick weather checks. I guess I do use Apple Weather…

Once upon a time, I used AccuWeather. I like their forecasts best, but after reading the amount of data they collect in their app, I decided that it’s spyware and deleted it.

Looking at it today, it looks like Apple’s “App Privacy” audit embarrassed them into removing the things that offended me (like access to my contacts, e-mail and browsing history).

I still use the AccuWeather web site in addition to Apple’s app.

1 Like

I wasn’t aware that The Weather Channel (Weather.com, Weather Underground and Storm Radar) is owned by IBM. But they just announced that IBM is selling this biz to an investor based in SF.
See IBM sells Weather Channel

Weather Apps is big business, innit?

I plan to mention this in the eventual write-up. We also ask Siri for the weather on occasion, but we find it quite frustrating for anything beyond broad strokes. It’s mostly good while brushing our teeth or doing something where we can’t look at CARROT Weather.

1 Like

“ Last year, IBM sold its health care data analytics business, Watson Health, to Francisco Partners. Similarly, IBM said at the time it was focusing on its core cloud and AI offerings.

In a note to clients, IBM stock analyst Amit Daryanani of Evercore ISI estimated Weather Co. contributed $150 million to $300 million to annual revenue. He added its sale will have a limited impact on IBM’s calendar year earnings.

“A sale of the Weather Company would further sharpen IBM’s focus on its hybrid cloud [and] AI strategy which should be a positive. In addition, proceeds should provide the company with funding to execute on more strategic deals such as the recently announced Apptio acquisition,” Daryanani said.”

https://www.investors.com/news/technology/ibm-stock-why-ibm-is-selling-weather-company/

And Apple continues to be a major leader in cloud and artificial intelligence services.

There are a few other weather apps I use that are not in the Poll:

  • Overlook (gorgeous graphic and widget; and it’s simplistic)
  • Weawow

I use eWeatherHD.
Our family business is New Guinea Tribal Art, but we also collected in Indonesia, the wider South Pacific, had a home in Mexico, etc. In younger days I went to Burning Man, so like that I can get Black Rock City.
The interface is easy to use. Lets me follow where I used to travel as well as personal interests in USA.

I use Hello Weather because I like the C/F feature

I was a huge fan of Dark Sky. It was unfortunate that Apple bought them and shut down the app. It was simple, and the weather map popped up quickly. The new Apple Weather App, while very good, does not do the same with the weather map. For me, this is a big negative. I believe the popularity shown for Apple’s Weather is strongly based on the fact that it comes with iOS rather than it being a superior product.

7 Likes

Not in the poll, I use ‎WeatherPro on the App Store and ‎RainToday on the App Store I pay £9 subscription that covers both apps.

2 Likes

I live in Wisconsin about 10 miles from Lake Michigan. In summer if there’s an east wind we can be 10 to 15 degrees cooler than further from the lake. It happens quite often that Apple Weather will show a temperature that’s much warmer than the Weather Underground and Weather Bug stations in my area. The Apple Weather station that my app gets its data from is nowhere near where I live and I have no idea where it is since the app doesn’t show that. Since it isn’t close by the precipitation alerts are also not reliable. It’s a very pretty app. It’s just not a very reliable app.

I still use Weather Underground because I have a weather station tied into it and so they give me a no ads subscription. But it has gone way downhill since IBM/Weather Company purchased it.

Hello Weather is good for a quick look at conditions without wading through metrics. I also have an annual sub to it.

Lately I’ve become a convert to Weather Bug. I accidentally purchased a sub to it years ago for my mom’s new iPad, then canceled the Apple Store purchase and got a refund because she didn’t want it. But it turns out the effects of the sub (no ads) is still active and I like how comprehensive it is—like Wunderground when it was good.

1 Like

I use Apple weather, BBC and the Met Office, which is the “…National meteorological service for the UK” since 1854.

Since the weather changes here every five minutes, it’s important to check several forecast sources, because one of them might be right!

1 Like

YES! I loved Dark Sky. I also have AirNow and AirVisual on my phone; use the former more than the latter these days.

I never use apple weather on the phone. The few times I tried, I recoiled in horror from the execrable radar. 90% of the time for 9-10 months a year, radar is all I need, since the Puget lowlands are mostly pretty consistent in broad outline despite hundreds of microclimates.

I do keep part of an eye on the temperature forecast, but only from NWS on mac or ipad (I’m calibrated to NWS quirks for the area) and my own outside thermometer.

I rarely want to look at weather at all on the phone because I have macs, ipads, and a watch. The main exception is radar, for which I use the excellent Radarscope. In smoky times like the last couple of days, Local Haze is faster loading and easier to read than the regular smoke maps if I’m not at a computer. Unfortunately there’s no watch app.

On the watch I use the radarscope complication and a data bar from snowflake, configured to show me wind, humidity and dew point in the text line. I’ve tried using the Apple complication for AQI, but it’s often absurdly wrong.

On the mac I keep a window open with various weather tabs. Most used is a very local (UW) three day history multi-graph which wouldn’t do most people any good, and some NWS tabs such as the local forecast, hourly graph, and satellite water vapor. I used to keep a tab with the local NWS Ex-Twitter feed via nitter.net, but nitter is dead now.

In summer there’s another window with assorted fire and smoke information, and I sometimes use windy.com if there’s anything interesting coming such as an atmospheric river or a wind storm.

On an iPad I occasionally use Seasonality Go. It uses public data sources, lets me configure almost anything as graphs, goes a week or so back and forth in time, and it’s radar is fine. You can set up any number of configurations and locations.

Major weather alerts come to my RSS feed and mailbox via the county emergency alert service.

I also use Wx (on Mac and iOS). Don’t like apple weather. App needs to allow me to save and easily switch between multiple locations. Dislike WeatherBug data collection (ditto accuweather, WU, weather channel) but it has the best data presentation

Hello weather is decent and I like supporting indie developers

Every time somebody posts about weather apps, it’s mainly because DarkSky does exist anymore. So sad.

2 Likes

Not mentioned and much used by me is Ventusky