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Why no Weather app?

T

trajen

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Oct 2, 2008
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IDGI... Why are there "missing" apps from the iPad? Why no Weather, Calculator, etc?

Even Mac OS X comes with a calculator...
 
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Would think it has something to do with their rule about not having apps that are the same as what comes with the OS. I think it is part of why you download iBooks separate.
 
Apple gets 30% of the price of any app downloaded from the AppStore. Why would they spend the time to develop, maintain, and support an app when they can get 30% of the revenue at literally no cost?
 
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jsh1120 said:
Apple gets 30% of the price of any app downloaded from the AppStore. Why would they spend the time to develop, maintain, and support an app when they can get 30% of the revenue at literally no cost?
Click to expand...
Because they give free weather and calculator apps on the iPhone and iPod Touch.
 
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trajen said:
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IDGI... Why are there "missing" apps from the iPad? Why no Weather, Calculator, etc?

Even Mac OS X comes with a calculator...
Click to expand...

Apple has never commented. However, Gruber did mention something about it when the iPad was introduced:

"It's not that Apple couldn't just create bigger versions of these apps and have them run on the iPad. It wasn't a technical problem, it was a design problem. There were, internally to Apple (of course), versions of these apps (or least some of them) with upscaled iPad-sized graphics, but otherwise the same UI and layout as the iPhone versions. Ends up that just blowing up iPhone apps to fill the iPad screen looks and feels weird, even if you use higher-resolution graphics so that nothing looks pixelated. So they were scrapped by you-know-who. Perhaps they'll appear on the iPad in some re-imagined form this summer with OS 4.0, but when the iPad ships next month, there won't be versions of these apps. At least that's the story I've heard from a few well-informed little birdies."

http://daringfireball.net/2010/03/iphone_apps_on_the_ipad

So, Steve Jobs didn't like the blown-up "widget" apps.

Apple will eventually do something about the lack of Stocks and Weather apps since they are now a feature of iOS 5's notification center.

Capt T said:
Would think it has something to do with their rule about not having apps that are the same as what comes with the OS. I think it is part of why you download iBooks separate.
Click to expand...

The apps in question are part of iOS. They ship with iOS and are not updated outside of iOS.

The primary reason the iBooks.app wasn't included in iOS (like Weather, Stocks, etc) was because it could be updated faster outside the OS.
 
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jaw04005 said:
trajen said:
Wirelessly posted (iPhone 4S: Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 5_0 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/534.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.1 Mobile/9A334 Safari/7534.48.3)

IDGI... Why are there "missing" apps from the iPad? Why no Weather, Calculator, etc?

Even Mac OS X comes with a calculator...
Click to expand...

Apple has never commented. However, Gruber did mention something about it when the iPad was introduced:

"It's not that Apple couldn't just create bigger versions of these apps and have them run on the iPad. It wasn't a technical problem, it was a design problem. There were, internally to Apple (of course), versions of these apps (or least some of them) with upscaled iPad-sized graphics, but otherwise the same UI and layout as the iPhone versions. Ends up that just blowing up iPhone apps to fill the iPad screen looks and feels weird, even if you use higher-resolution graphics so that nothing looks pixelated. So they were scrapped by you-know-who. Perhaps they'll appear on the iPad in some re-imagined form this summer with OS 4.0, but when the iPad ships next month, there won't be versions of these apps. At least that's the story I've heard from a few well-informed little birdies."

http://daringfireball.net/2010/03/iphone_apps_on_the_ipad

So, Steve Jobs didn't like the blown-up "widget" apps.

Apple will eventually do something about the lack of Stocks and Weather apps since they are now a feature of iOS 5's notification center.

Capt T said:
Would think it has something to do with their rule about not having apps that are the same as what comes with the OS. I think it is part of why you download iBooks separate.
Click to expand...

The apps in question are part of iOS. They ship with iOS and are not updated outside of iOS.

The primary reason the iBooks.app wasn't included in iOS (like Weather, Stocks, etc) was because it could be updated faster outside the OS.
Click to expand...

VERY interesting! But why not include the Stocks and Weather widgets in the Notification Center on iPad? Or maybe they're working on that for 5.1? Hmm
 
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I know my iPad's notification center looks quite barren compared to iPhone. It is a weird inconsistency that I would have thought Apple would have addressed.
 
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I'd like to see the weather (and why not stocks) be a Notification Center -Only "app" if need be. Sometimes I want to see the weather forecast when on my iPad...realize the notification "widget" isn't there and look for my iPhone to see it.
Sure, I could go online or download another app, but a simple pull down is much easier.
 
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I am lost, why would we have to worry about no weather or clock apps directly from Apple when you first get the Ipad since you can just sign into appstore and get them for free?
 
Mdifilm said:
I am lost, why would we have to worry about no weather or clock apps directly from Apple when you first get the Ipad since you can just sign into appstore and get them for free?
Click to expand...

I dont think this is a matter of worry. More a thing its fun to discuss, because it doesnt have a clear first answer.
 
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I love having my weather and stock apps in the notification center on my iPhone. I check them both regularly and I like not having to open an app to do it. I have gotten some good weather apps on my iPad to replace the one that comes with iPhone. Still haven't found a stock app I love yet. The Bloomberg one is way to busy for me--I just want a list of the stocks I'm watching and what they're doing today (see the iPhone stock app).

All that being said, my iPad is wifi only and spends a lot of the day not connected. But it would be nice to have that stuff for when I am in a hotspot.
 
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I wouldn't be surprised to learn that accounting rules governing revenue recognition are somehow involved as well. This is why they had to charge a nominal fee for iPod Touch iOS upgrades in the past.
 
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jsh1120 said:
And how often do you view your iPhone in landscape versus the iPad?
Click to expand...
1/3 of the time on my iPhone and about 50/50 on my iPad. Why would that matter in relation to the iPad not having native calculator and weather apps while the iPhone and iPod Touch do?
 
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You can find weather apps everywhere for free...but I have yet to find a clock app that works as well as the apple one on the iPhone. I just can't trust the downloaded ones to wake me up.
 
Yeah, you could get 3rd party apps for weather, stocks, etc. but do any of them integrate into notification center? I still don't get why there's no voice memo, calculator, and other iPhone standard apps on the iPad.
 
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Mdifilm said:
I am lost, why would we have to worry about no weather or clock apps directly from Apple when you first get the Ipad since you can just sign into appstore and get them for free?
Click to expand...
Free without annoying ads? The calculator apps I've seen are free but all having annoying, distracting ads. :(
 
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Is there a way to transfer the apps over from an iPhone via SSH after a jailbreak? I would port weather in notification center and the clock app.
 
What are your favorite weather apps? I am looking for one to replace the Weather channel app. It's good but I wouldn't mind something else, paid or not. Let me know guys. Ideally with international cities support.
 
Weather in iPad's Notifications

Sedulous said:
Yeah, you could get 3rd party apps for weather, stocks, etc. but do any of them integrate into notification center?
Click to expand...

Well there is some kind of a workaround. There is an app that subscribes you to one or more weather calendars. It's called WeatherCals.

http://itunes.apple.com/app/id438449201?mt=8

So if acivated it will show you the weather in notifications as calendar entries—when you tap on it it will open calendar and give some more details about the weather in your region. I've got the app when it was free and it works pretty well. It looks like this on iPad 2:

weathercalsipad2ios5.png


Sorry the screenshot is German. Wolkenlos means no clouds. The app itself is English as well of course. And there should be a free lite version.
 
number84 said:
You can find weather apps everywhere for free...but I have yet to find a clock app that works as well as the apple one on the iPhone. I just can't trust the downloaded ones to wake me up.
Click to expand...

THIS! I am amazed that the clock app from the iPod touch is not included in the iPad and can't be added later through iTunes or app store. The biggest thing I miss is the sleep timer. Is there a reliable 3rd party timer app that consistently runs in the background without being active?
 
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DrNoellyG said:
What are your favorite weather apps? I am looking for one to replace the Weather channel app. It's good but I wouldn't mind something else, paid or not. Let me know guys. Ideally with international cities support.
Click to expand...

Weatherbug has a much nicer UI, especially as it is faster. I have heard it has a checkered past in Windows circles, hopefully the App Store did a good job vetting it.
 
Sydde said:
Weatherbug has a much nicer UI, especially as it is faster. I have heard it has a checkered past in Windows circles, hopefully the App Store did a good job vetting it.
Click to expand...
I will try it as soon as I get home. For what I can see it's not highly reviewed but will try it anyways. Thanks.
 
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