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—there are serious problems with Apple’s systems.
According to Apple’s system status page, the Weather app has 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 Evidence-including Macworld’s own experience -the problem is more widespread. It also affects the weather widget which reports “no weather data” even though the weather is displayed correctly in the app. The status page also explicitly mentions that next-hour precipitation in Alaska may not be available due to data provider outages.
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.”
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. So we are in a holding pattern until Apple gives us the green light (ie, currently yellow on Apple’s status page). Some reports say the iOS 16.4.1 update may be imminent to fix the problem, but it could take days.
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.
We’ll update this story as we get more information about the issue.
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