What is the best weather app on Mac?
Weather applications are always popular. Why wouldn’t they be? Sure, you can check the weather just by looking out of the window, but that only tells you what’s happening right now. To plan ahead, a forecast is needed. There are many ways to receive such a forecast, ranging from hopelessly old-fashioned ones like watching TV, to something more modern like using a website. But using an app is a better solution still. Although it may use the same source of information, it is simply more convenient. After all, seeing weather displayed right on your desktop is undoubtedly quicker than opening a website. There are many applications that provide this functionality; they are available on pretty much every operating system, including mobile ones. But today, we will focus on programs developed for macOS. We will review several of them and determine the best weather app for Mac.
Stock weather app in macOS Ventura
The Ventura update brought many new functions to macOS. One of them is a weather app made by Apple itself. The app provides several widgets for your desktop; larger ones provide more information. By clicking on the widget, you can access a wealth of additional weather data: a precipitation map, air quality index, atmospheric pressure, time of sunrise, and so on. As expected from Apple, the app looks very good; it features many beautiful animations that change based on the time of day and, of course, weather.
Many people will declare this program to be the best weather app for Mac – simply because it comes preinstalled with Ventura. But thanks to the features we’ve outlined above, it can also stand out on its own. Though “the best weather app on Mac” is a subjective title, this app gets the editor’s pick. Unfortunately, you cannot access this beautiful app if you’re using macOS Monterey or earlier, but there are many similar programs.
iWeather – Forecast App
Despite having an “i” in its name, iWeather was not developed by Apple – but it’s a great app nonetheless. It provides daily and weekly forecasts, as well as some extra information like wind speed. Though iWeather’s interface is not beautiful, it is quite easy to understand and gets the job done.
It is worth noting that iWeather is not just a Mac application. It is also available on iPhone, iPad, and Apple Watch. Having a consistent interface across all of your devices is already pretty neat; being able to sync your settings is even better. If you want an app that works with all Apple devices – this is the best one.
Weather Widget Desktop
Just as the name suggests, this is primarily a widget app. But unlike many such apps, Weather Widget Desktop is quite sophisticated, and provides many details about the current weather. Of course, a tradeoff had to be made: to make all this data available at a glance, the widget has to take a lot of screen space. It can also display current temperature in the menu bar.
A massive weather widget is simply too situational to be “the best weather app on Mac” – not everyone likes visual clutter on their desktop. Still, many users will find it a great addition to their desktop.
Weather Dock: Desktop Forecast
Weather Dock also makes weather available at a glance – but in a different way. It is a dock icon that changes with the weather conditions; a fake “notification” count next to the icon is used to display the temperature. By default, the icon displays current weather and temperature – which is not always helpful – but you can adjust this behavior in the settings. Clicking on the icon will bring up a window with more information and a five-day forecast. This window is fairly basic, which is understandable; the icon itself is the app’s main feature.
Is Weather Dock the best weather app for Mac? Probably not, but it is pretty clever and neat. If you think that a weather app should be unobtrusive, it might be the right choice for you.
Conclusion
The best weather app is the one that comes preinstalled with your Mac – as long as you use Ventura, that is. For those stuck on an older version of macOS, the best alternative is iWeather – Forecast App. It is also available on other Apple devices, including iPhone, iPad, and even Apple Watch.
Weather apps are easy to make; they mainly pull data from the internet and display it. As a result, there are many such apps available for macOS. But when it comes to sophisticated software, Mac doesn’t always perform well – often, they are available only on Windows. To bypass this issue, consider installing Windows 10 on your Mac.