Apple Weather app had a major overhaul in iOS 15 and it has gained some great new features, like customizable notifications and three interactive weather maps. Get to know the new features.
Apple has always had a weather app on the iPhone and it was OK, but fairly basic. It was too basic for many people and alternative weather apps that provided more information we often preferred by iPhone users. Weather forecasting is one of the most popular app categories in the store.
When Apple bought the very popular Dark Sky weather app, we expected it to be used to boost the bundled iOS Weather app that has been around and little changed since forever.
We saw a few tweaks to Apple Weather in iOS 14, but the major changes have come in the iOS 15 app. The free Apple Weather app has gained several features from the Dark Sky weather app, but Dark Sky is still in the App Store and it still does more, if you don’t mind paying for it. It is good, but the free Apple Weather app isn’t far behind.
Will Apple keep Dark Sky as a separate app forever? It is hard to say, but what is likely is that we will see more of its features in the free Weather app in the future. Weather is already far superior to the previous version. Let’s take a look at what’s new in the app.
1 Add locations to Weather
This may be the first screen you see, but if it is a full screen weather forecast, tap the button in the bottom right corner to go here. This is where you add locations you want weather forecasts for.
There is no Add button. To add an extra location, search for it in the search box at the top. When you find it and view the forecast for that location, tap the Add button at the top of that screen to add it to the list here. For example, type New York in the search box, tap New York in the search results to see the forecast, then tap Add on that forecast screen.
2 Weather menu and options
Tap the three dots button in the top right corner and a menu is displayed. Select either Celsius or Fahrenheit as you prefer. Press Notifications on the menu.
3 Choose weather notifications
If you have multiple locations set up in the Weather app, you can choose which ones show notifications. The sort of thing you might see is that rain is starting in a few minutes or is expected to stop at a certain time. Most people will probably enable notifications for their current location, but not for other locations. It is up to you.
4 Delete weather locations
The menu (three dots in the top right corner) has an option to edit the list of locations, but there is no need for it and if you want to remove an item, just swipe left over it until you see the Delete button. My Location cannot be deleted, only extra places you add yourself.
5 View the forecast
Tap a location and the weather forecast is displayed. The button in the bottom right corner of the screen switches between this view and the location list. In fact, if this was the view used last time, the app will start with it.
Tap the Maps icon in the bottom right corner to see the new interactive maps in the Weather app.
6 View a temperature map
There are three maps to choose from: Temperature, Precipitation (rain, snow) and Air Quality. The one shown here is Temperature and blue areas are cooler and red areas are hotter. Pinch and spread with two fingers to zoom in or out and drag the map to move around.
7 View a rain map
Select the Precipitation map and you can see where and when it is raining. The map is animated and shows what is happening over the next 12 hours. Use the slider at the bottom of the screen or just sit back and watch it looping over the next few hours. The colors show how heavy or light the rain will be, with light colours being the heaviest rain.
8 View an air quality map
The air quality map is most useful in big cities and industrial areas where the air quality can sometimes be poor because of car emissions, factories, fires and so on. Zoom in to the city and see how bad the air is right now.
