The next time you check the forecast in Apple’s Weather app, you might be greeted with a bit of news. Apple has added News integration for regional weather stories to the Weather app in the beta release of iOS 16.2.
Weather × News
For example, users will find a link for a San Francisco Chronicle article about Bay Area weather conditions as a new data point for San Francisco’s weather. Tapping the link to the Chronicle story opens the article in Apple News. Similarly, the Weather app for cities in Alabama and Mississippi includes a link to a Fox Weather story in Apple News about tornado touchdowns over the weekend.
In the current iOS 16.2 beta, Apple News integration in Weather appears to be limited to US cities and with mixed results. Checks for both New York and New Orleans today do not include Apple News links.
Apple currently doesn’t let you customize which data tiles are presented in its Weather app, and there are no settings for disabling News integration in the current beta. “Open in News” links are still present and active if you delete the News app. Tapping a story follows the Apple News URL for that story on the web.
Weather isn’t the first app to receive cross-pollination from specific topics in Apple News. Apple’s Stocks app presents relevant business stories from Apple News based on which companies you follow.
9to5Mac’s Take
Integrating relevant stories from Apple News in Stocks and Weather is a smart way to populate these apps with useful data. If Apple does a dedicated Sports app, it should include Apple News integration for teams and sports you follow. There should probably be an option to hide these stories, however, if you don’t want to read about natural disasters when you check the forecast.
It’s not quite the App Store situation, either, but you could argue that Apple News links are inching toward ads. The News app includes ads, even for News+ subscribers, and the quality isn’t always great. News integration with Weather is smart and useful as long as it doesn’t become a bigger gateway to ads in Apple’s apps.
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