If you’re like us, one of the first things you do every morning is check the weather app on your iPhone. If you showed a blank screen this morning, it’s not a problem with your Wi-Fi – Apple systems have serious problems.
According to Apple’s System Status page, the Weather app has been having “continuous” issues since 11:00 p.m. ET on Monday and the service “may be slow or unreliable.” Apple notes that “some users are affected,” but according to anecdotal evidence— including Macworld’s own experience — the problem appears to be quite widespread. It also seems to affect the weather widget, which reports “No weather data” even when the weather is displayed correctly in the app. The status page also explicitly notes that precipitation for the next hour may not be available for Alaska due to a data provider outage.
Apple responded to inquiries on Twitter with a message stating that they are “currently working on a fix for the Weather app outage and will post an update online.”
Some Macworld staff have been experiencing intermittent issues with the Weather app in recent weeks. Sometimes the app takes a while to load or doesn’t load at all. Quitting the app and restarting has been a quick fix, but even that doesn’t always work. So we’re in a holding pattern until Apple gives us the green light (it’s literally yellow on Apple’s status page right now). Some reports suggest that an update to iOS 16.4.1 could be imminent to fix the problem, but that could take days.
Of course, it’s not the end of the world, as there are numerous ways to get weather conditions and forecasts on your phone. However, after Apple shut down the popular Dark Sky app on January 1, the iOS Weather app, which picked up many of Dark Sky’s features, is probably the source of weather information for many more users.
We will update this story as we receive more information about the issue.
