iOS and Environmentalism

If you use the weather app on iOS 17 the weather app provides you with information about average temperature and average precipitation. It tells you how different the temperature and rainfall are, compared to average. Today, for example, I see that the temperature is 4°c warmer than the average. It tells me that usually the temperature is 17°c and that the current outside air temperature is 21°c.

For 25 September the normal temperature range is 5° to 21°, and the average high is 17°, today’s high temperature is 21°.

If I look at the average rainfall I can see that it should be 12.9cm rather than 12.6cm.

Historically the average total precipitation from 26 August to 25 September has been 128.5mm. Today, the total for the last 30 days is 125.6mm.

It also gives us the moon phase, the visibility, humidity and more. The current visibility is 27km. Some day they will tell us what the usual visibility is for this time of year, when they collect enough data.

Making Climate Change Visible

With the new weather app Apple is making climate change visible. We have gone from weather apps that tell us what the weather is and will be to what the weather usually is, and how big the difference is, from the norm. We can look at the temperature and rainfall differences. These are two easy to understand metrics. Within a second we can see that the weather is better or worse than it should be.

Comparing Locations

When you look at Chamonix it is 13°c warmer than it should be for this time of year. It is far out of the usual range for this time of year. The difference is 13°c. It’s 22°c and the average temperature should be 9°c. It’s t-shirt weather in Chamonix.

And Finally

With Big Data and AI it is easy for a company like Apple to look at the weather data from several centuries and comment on it, in relation to current conditions. Once per day it can be refreshed to give the current variation between the norm, and the current situation. By giving people this information it allows people to see how serious climate change is, as well as how it affects them personally.

I no longer have to say “it feels like it never rains” and “it feels too warm for this time of year.” The App provides quantitative data, to prove that the opinion, or sentiment, is correct.

This move makes the Apple Weather App more interesting. The Swiss weather app provides similar information but in the form of blog posts written by humans, every few days.