iOS 5 Brings Improvements to Weather App

One staple of iOS since its inception has been the Weather app, a simple home screen powered by Yahoo and The Weather Channel that allows users to add locations and see the current conditions as well as a six-day forecast of high/low temperatures and an icon showing the conditions for each day.

With iOS 5, Apple has made several minor improvements to the weather functionality, starting of course with the integration of a weather widget into the Notification Center, offering users a glance at weather conditions with a single swipe.

But Apple has also made improvements to the Weather app, including a "current location" page that uses geolocation to automatically display the weather and forecast for wherever the user is rather than having to manually input a location.

Apple has also increased the level of forecast detail, as tapping on a daily forecast expands the item to display an hour-by-hour forecast of temperatures and conditions, with the user able to easily scroll through the entire list for the day.

Unfortunately, Apple has yet to deploy a dynamic home screen icon for the Weather app that would show the current conditions for the user's location instead of the fixed display of 73 degrees and sunny. But with the weather easily accessible from anywhere via a single swipe in Notification Center, users may find their need for a dynamic home screen icon to be lessened considerably.