My winner of WWDC was the new Mac and iPad Weather app. No, seriously

It took over a decade, but we’ve made it

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Appleannounced a big bunch of updates atWWDC 2022in the form ofiOS 16with a redesigned lock screen, Stage Manager formacOS 13 VenturaandiPadOS 16, and lots more that focus big on productivity and personalization.

However, while these updates have been well-received, the big stand-out for me is the Weather app. For years on iPad, if you wanted to check the weather, you’d be directed to a web page which was never the greatest experience.

While there were third-party offerings such asCARROTand Dark Sky, before it was bought by Apple, it felt like an opportunity was being missed here, even though there had been weather widgets on macOS and iPad for several years.

But we finally saw the Weather app fromiOS 15last year, and only a year on, we see the app move over to the Mac and iPad. For me, it’s the highlight ofWWDC2022.

Sunny with a chance of iPad

Apple has said in the past that it wouldn’t create its own take on an app unless it had something different to offer. It’s probably why we haven’t seen a Calculator app on the iPad from the company, but the weather app has been an obvious absence on Apple’s tablet alongside the Mac products for years.

When the first iPhone debuted in 2007, the weather app wasn’t a weather app arguably - it was a widget with a brief overview of what the day may bring. Eventually, it evolved into an app, alongside widgets you could briefly glance at, but if you wanted push notifications for upcoming rain or air pollution, you had to use a third-party app.

Fast forward to 2020 whenit bought Dark Sky, and we began to see a new Weather app come to fruition, with iOS 15 bringing the redesigned Weather app you’ve most likely seen in the past year.

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Seeing the animations in this app when it’s cloudy or there’s heavy rain is quintessentially Apple, and every aspect in showing you how the next day or ten days look, is simple but elegant.

It’s an app that I brought back to my main home screen, something I hadn’t done in years, and I was hoping to see this come to iPad.

Fast forward to June 6, and iPadOS 16 finally has it, alongside macOS Ventura. It looks the same, just bigger, and that’s all I need.

While I don’t use an iPad as much as I used to, it’s great to finally see it arrive on the platform, alongside the Mac. Once again, it’s showing that Apple isn’t keeping certain features and apps exclusive to its biggest product, but also taking advantage of the bigger screen estate that the iPad and Mac both provide.

If you’re thinking of making the move to an iPad before iPadOS 16 arrives, we canrecommend some modelsthat could help showcase the Weather app and more, especially if you’re looking for one for the coming school year.

Daryl had been freelancing for 3 years before joining TechRadar, now reporting on everything software-related. In his spare time, he’s written a book, ‘The Making of Tomb Raider’. His second book, ‘50 Years of Boss Fights’, came out in 2024, with a third book coming in 2025. He also has a newsletter called ‘Springboard’. He’s usually found playing games old and new on his Steam Deck, Nintendo Switch, and MacBook Pro. If you have a story about an updated app, one that’s about to launch, or just anything Software-related, drop him a line.

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