Weather mini
The missing weather app in the dock.
Start new thread

Weather mini 3.6: Local weather sources and a much smaller app

by
•

Weather mini 3.6 is now available. This update adds local weather sources in supported regions, makes the app nearly half the size, and brings a series of improvements across Weather mini.

Regional Weather, Closer to Home

Sometimes the weather source you know best is the one closest to home. Weather mini 3.6 can now add data from local weather agencies to your forecast:

  • Canada: Environment and Climate Change Canada / Meteorological Service of Canada

  • Germany: Deutscher Wetterdienst

  • United States: NOAA / National Weather Service

Turn on Regional Weather in settings, and Weather mini automatically matches each location with an available local source. There is nothing else to set up, even when you travel.

Turn it on once, and Weather mini takes care of the rest.

It works everywhere you use Weather mini: cities, Trip Forecasts, widgets, Apple Watch, notifications, Morning Brief, and Evening Forecast.

Apple Weather remains the main source. When local data is not available, Weather mini simply continues with Apple Weather as usual.

Regional Weather is included with Weather mini Plus.

A Smaller App, with Smarter City Search

Weather mini has its own city search. Until now, its large catalog of places lived mostly inside the app, adding weight to every download and update.

In 3.6, common searches still happen locally. Wider searches automatically continue through our cloud search on Cloudflare’s global CDN. You search exactly as before, but Weather mini is now nearly half the size.

City matching is also more consistent for places with similar names or nearby locations.

Better Trip Planning

Trip Forecasts are easier to update. Change a destination or date, and Weather mini refreshes the plan more reliably while keeping the existing forecast visible.

Apple Intelligence also understands dates and trip lengths more reliably. If you do not mention a duration, Weather mini starts with a three-day plan that you can adjust.

More Reliable on Apple Watch

Weather mini 3.6 makes the Watch app, widgets, and complications more dependable. They stay in step more consistently and can keep showing recent weather when a new update takes longer than expected.

When you raise your wrist, the weather should simply be there.

Weather That Stays in Sync

We also improved background updates, helping notifications and daily summaries stay with the right city and keeping weather more consistent across the app, widgets, notifications, and Apple Watch.

It is the kind of change you should not need to notice. The right forecast should simply be ready where you expect it.

Thank you!

Kai & Ann

162 views

Add a comment

Replies

Best

I like the balance you've chosen here. I've noticed many weather apps become bloated over time, so a smaller app backed by local weather sources feels refreshing

I've noticed that weather apps often get short trips right but struggle with longer travel plans when longer travel plans when conditions change. Have you seen the new trip forecasting improvements reduce those kinds of issues?

 Thanks for asking! Trip Forecasts was built to be a simple, lightweight helper so you can quickly scan weather across multiple destinations on one screen while planning.

For me, weather accuracy depends a lot on local forecasting rather than global averages, so this update immediately caught my attention.

I am particularly interested in how the local source selection behaves when travelling between countries. Does it switch automatically based on the location, or does it wait for a new forecast refresh?

Great question! Regional Weather is optional and is turned off by default. Once you enable the switch in Settings, Weather mini will automatically use the appropriate local weather service (where available) whenever it refreshes a forecast. This applies not only to your saved cities, but also to cities in Trip Plans and any weather lookups used for notifications. So if you’re traveling between supported countries, everything will seamlessly use the corresponding regional provider in the background.

The Canada, Germany, and US regional weather support is a really smart start. Curious though are more countries planned for future updates? 🌍

 Yes, we will continue adding more weather data sources in coming updates.

The regional weather integration is a thoughtful addition. Have yoyu compared forecast accuary across Apple Weather and local providers during sever weather events, or is the goal mainly to improve local trust and consistency?

 That's a great question! Weather accuracy can actually be quite subjective, which makes direct side-by-side comparisons tricky. That said, local official agencies definitely tend to offer better accuracy in many scenarios.

I really like the automatic source switching. Have you considered adding a forcast comparision view where users can quickly see Apple Weather alongside their regional provider for the same location?

 Great idea, but we prefer to keep Weather mini's interface simple, clean, and distraction-free!

Cutting the app size almost in half is a great achievement. The only thing I'd love to see is a small indicator showing which weather source is currently powering each forecast, just to make the experience more transparent.

 Thanks for the great feedback! Right now, Apple Weather is still our main provider, with regional sources acting as a supplement in supported areas. As we bring in more primary data sources down the road, having an indicator like the one you suggested will definitely be essential.

pulling from the actual national met services instead of one aggregated API is a nice touch, those regional agencies usually have better short-term accuracy for their own country than the global providers do. does the app let you pick which source wins when regional data disagrees with the default one, or does it just silently prefer local whenever it's available?

 It’s automatic. Because forecasts appear in several places—the main app, widgets, watch complications, trip plans, and push notifications: we use one setting to keep the behavior consistent. When enabled, the apps and servers prefer regional data whenever it’s available; otherwise, they fall back to the default provider.