WWDC24: Bring context to today’s weather | Apple

Summary

Apple's WeatherKit has introduced significant updates for 2024, enhancing its weather forecasting capabilities. New features include detailed forecasts with cloud cover by altitude, precipitation amounts, and humidity. Developers can now highlight upcoming weather changes and access historical comparisons for a broader perspective. The addition of a Statistics API provides historical averages and daily summaries, while support for FlatBuffers optimizes data transfer, reducing payload size and parse time.

Takeaways

• 🌐 WeatherKit is a service powered by Apple, providing developers with easy-to-use, privacy-first APIs for hyperlocal weather data.
• 🛠️ Developers of apps like Carrot Weather, (Not Boring) Weather, and DuckDuckGo utilize WeatherKit's Swift and REST APIs to deliver critical weather information.
• 📈 WeatherKit is enhancing its offerings with new features, including more detailed forecasts, contextual highlights of weather changes, and binary format support for faster data transfer.
• 🌦️ The service now provides richer details in its forecasts, such as cloud cover by altitude and hourly precipitation amounts.
• 📊 WeatherKit introduces the 'Changes' query to highlight significant upcoming temperature and precipitation changes, and the 'Historical Comparisons' query to compare current weather to historical averages.
• 📅 A new 'Statistics API' has been added, offering historical averages and daily summaries for a comprehensive view of weather patterns over time.
• 🔍 The 'Historical Averages' query provides long-term data for temperature and precipitation, aiding in long-term planning and climate awareness.
• 📉 The 'Daily Summaries' query offers a summary of weather for any past day, including high and low temperatures, and precipitation data.
• 🔒 WeatherKit ensures data accessibility with authentication bearers, maintaining privacy and security standards.
• 🚀 The introduction of FlatBuffers support promises up to a 25% decrease in payload size and up to a 90% decrease in parse time, improving data efficiency.
• 📝 The script provides practical examples of how to implement these new features in both Swift and REST API formats, making it easier for developers to integrate them into their apps.

Q & A

What is WeatherKit and how does it benefit developers?

WeatherKit is a service powered by the Apple Weather Service, providing easy-to-use, privacy-first APIs for developers to integrate accurate, hyperlocal weather data into their applications, enhancing user experience with critical weather information.

Which popular apps are mentioned as using WeatherKit's APIs?

Carrot Weather, (Not Boring) Weather, and DuckDuckGo are mentioned as examples of apps that use WeatherKit's Swift and REST APIs to deliver weather information to their users.

What new features are being introduced to WeatherKit this year?

New features include enriched forecasts with details like precipitation amounts and cloud cover by altitude, the ability to highlight upcoming weather changes contextually, and support for a binary format to expedite data transfer.

How can developers access WeatherKit's APIs to implement them in their apps?

Developers can access WeatherKit's APIs through both Swift and REST interfaces. The script provides examples of how to fetch data using Swift code and how to construct REST API calls to retrieve weather data.

What does the 'weather API' offer and what enhancements are being made to it?

The 'weather API' offers essential weather data such as current conditions, minute-by-minute precipitation, hourly and daily forecasts, and weather alerts. Enhancements include adding more details to the current, hourly, and daily forecasts, such as cloud cover by altitude and precipitation amounts by hour.

Can you provide an example of how to access hourly precipitation data using Swift?

Yes, the script demonstrates creating an extension on CLLocation for New York as a reference location, then fetching precipitation data by specifying the location, granularity (.hourly), and accessing the precipitationAmount property on the hourly forecast.

How are WeatherKit APIs hosted and what parameters are needed for a REST API call?

WeatherKit APIs are hosted at weatherkit.apple.com. Parameters needed for a REST API call include the API version, locale, location coordinates, and datasets to fetch, such as the hourly forecast.

What new queries are being added to the Weather API to help users understand weather changes?

Two new queries being added are 'Changes' and 'Historical Comparisons'. The 'Changes' query provides upcoming changes in temperature and precipitation, while 'Historical Comparisons' allows users to compare today's weather to historical averages.

How can developers use the 'changes' query in their apps to inform users about weather changes?

Developers can use the 'changes' query to fetch a list of upcoming changes in weather, filter them for a specific time frame like 'tomorrow', and display messages to users about significant temperature changes, such as decreases.

What is the purpose of the new Statistics API and what does it offer?

The new Statistics API provides broad and narrow historical statistics about weather, with queries for 'Historical Averages' and 'Daily Summaries'. It allows developers to fetch long-term averages for temperature and precipitation, and summaries of weather for any past day, helping users understand weather patterns in a historical context.

What is FlatBuffers and how does it benefit the performance of WeatherKit's APIs?

FlatBuffers is a binary format that WeatherKit is introducing to expedite data transfer. It can reduce payload size by up to 25% compared to compressed JSON and decrease parse time by up to 90%, making data fetching faster and more efficient.