If you’re like us, one of the first things you do each morning is to check the weather app on your iPhone. If it returned a blank screen this morning, it’s not an issue with your Wi-Fi—Apple’s systems have been having serious problems all day. As of 3:30 pm ET, the service appears to have been restored
According to Apple’s System Status page earlier today, the Weather app had “ongoing” issues since 11:00 pm ET Monday and the service “may be slow or unreliable.” Apple notes that “some users are affected,” but based on anecdotal evidence—including Macworld’s own experience—the issue appears to be fairly widespread. It also appears to affect the Weather widget, which reports “No weather data” even when the weather properly shows in the app. The status page also explicitly notes that next-hour precipitation may be unavailable for Alaska due to a data provider outage.
Apple responded to queries on Twitter with a message saying they are “currently working on a solution for the Weather app outage and will post an update online.” Later in the afternoon, Apple’s status page was all green and the warning indicator had been lifted.
Some Macworld staffers have experienced on-and-off issues with the Weather app over the past several weeks. At times, the app is slow to load or doesn’t load at all. Quitting the app and relaunching has been a quick workaround, but even that doesn’t always work. So we’re in a holding pattern until Apple gives us the green light (literally, it’s yellow on Apple’s status page at the moment). Some reports suggested that an iOS 16.4.1 update could be imminent to fix the underlying issue, but Apple appears to have rectified it.
Of course, it’s not the end of the world since there are numerous ways to get weather conditions and forecasts on your phone. However, after Apple shuttered the popular Dark Sky app on January 1, the stock iOS Weather app—which picked up many of the Dark Sky features—is likely the go-to source for weather information for many more users.
