Why Apple Dropped Yahoo For Weather Channel [Report]

According to a report from earlier this month, it was revealed that with iOS 8, Apple had decided to drop Yahoo from their Weather app, instead choosing to go with the Weather Channel. To be fair, the Weather Channel has always been the company that supplied Yahoo with its data in the first place, so Apple isn’t really changing anything apart from just cutting out the middle man, with the middle man being Yahoo in this case.

So why the switch? Well according to a report from Re/code, it isn’t because Apple and Yahoo’s relationship soured, but more because the Weather Channel made Apple a better deal. Ironically enough the deal was supposedly engineered by a former Yahoo board member who is also the Weather Channel’s CEO, David Kenny.

How they convinced Apple to dump Yahoo was by introducing new features and information that was previously unavailable to Yahoo. This includes more weather specificity related to the user’s location, as well as a 9-day forecast which is an increase from 5, so if you want to check what the weather would be like a week from today, you could.

Sure, Yahoo misses out on one app, but is it that big of a deal? Apparently it is, since it pretty much opens the door to other competitors. According to an anonymous source, “Others now see an in. Getting on these key mobile platforms is a must-have for Yahoo, since it does not have a phone, and now that status is vulnerable.”

The report goes on to claim that there are some inside Yahoo who are worried about what this means for Yahoo’s other apps, like the Stock app which also pulls information from other providers.

Tyler Lee
Categories: Apple, Cellphones
Tags: Apps, iOS 8, Yahoo