This developer toolkit makes good on Apple’s plans to allow third-party developers to build apps on top of Apple’s own weather data - an area Apple had signaled its interest in with the Dark Sky acquisition. In addition, Apple followed the news of the weather app with the long-expected launch of WeatherKit. The app isn’t all that remarkable, largely just an iPad-optimized version of the native iPhone app. “We’re also bringing Weather to the iPad, taking full advantage of the stunning display with beautiful animations like these gently moving clouds, heavy snowfall and driving rain,” noted Apple SVP of Software Engineering Craig Federighi, as he briefly showed off the new native app’s features.
While there were plenty of quality third-party apps users could rely on for accessing weather information on the iPad, it seemed strange that a flagship Apple device like this wouldn’t have such a basic utility at this point.īut today at Apple’s Worldwide Developer Conference keynote, the company announced that, at last, the iPad would finally get its own Weather app. Did the IBM-owned The Weather Channel have an undisclosed traffic deal with Apple? Did Apple really think users would rather visit a website than a native app? Was this an antitrust thing? What was going on?! Apple never explained its thinking here, but the fact that it had launched a Weather widget for iPad without an accompanying app made this whole thing feel increasingly bizarre. This was a less-than-ideal experience, as the site (), is cluttered with ads and is not the sort of clean and easy-to-navigate experience Apple users have come to expect. The company even went so far as to roll out a Weather widget for the iPadOS home screen, but instead of launching a native app, it linked users to The Weather Channel’s website. Oddly, Apple had overlooked the addition of this key app, despite acquiring weather app maker Dark Sky in 2020 and revamping the iOS Weather app with the launch of iOS 15. Today, Apple addressed a longtime user complaint about the iPad with news that the device will finally get its own default weather app - some 12 years after the tablet’s debut, if you can believe it.
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