If you’re like us, one of the first things you do every morning is check the weather app on your iPhone. If it’s back to a blank screen this morning, it’s not a problem with your Wi-Fi—Apple’s systems have been experiencing serious problems all day. But after more than half a day of uninterrupted power outage, the service has resumed. However, it remains to be seen if the weather app needs to make a major fix to prevent this from happening again.
According to Apple’s system status page earlier Tuesday, the Weather app had “ongoing” issues since Monday at 11:00 p.m., and service “may be slow or unreliable.” Apple notes that “some users are affected,” but based on that Storyline EvidenceThe problem was more widespread — including Macworld’s own experience. This affects the weather widget, which shows “no weather data” even though the weather appears correct in the app.
Apple responded to questions on Twitter, saying they are “currently working on a fix for the Weather app crash and will release an update online.” Later in the afternoon, Apple’s status page was all green and the alert indicator was raised.
Some Macworld employees have experienced on-and-off issues with the weather app over the past several weeks. Sometimes, the app is slow to load or doesn’t load at all. Quitting the app and restarting it is a quick fix, but it doesn’t always work. While Apple hasn’t given us the green light (it’s no longer yellow on Apple’s status page) it’s not clear that the app needs a major overhaul. Some reports suggest that the iOS 16.4.1 update will be imminent to fix the underlying problem that has been brewing for a few weeks. Apple doesn’t update its apps independently of the system, so any fix must be done as part of an iOS update.
Of course, it’s not the end of the world, as there are many ways to get weather and forecasts on your phone. However, after Apple shut down the popular Dark Sky app on January 1st, the stock iOS Weather app — which gained many of the Dark Sky features — may still be the go-to source for weather information for many users. So while it works now, we’ll be looking for potential storms on the horizon.
