This release makes search, the home page and nearby airports work properly anywhere in the world, so places like Phuket and Bangkok behave the same as places at home.
Improved
Search works worldwide. Searching for a country now lists its cities, so "Thailand" shows Bangkok, Phuket and more. Search no longer offers the middle of a country, a province or an ocean as if it were a place, so you only see towns, cities and other real places.
Your location works anywhere. "Use my location" now gives you a real, named place wherever you are, instead of falling back to a city far away. If a well-known city is close by, you land on that city's page, so one city has one address.
Shorter addresses for well-known places. Typing a city's plain name in the address, such as phuket, takes you straight to its full page, phuket-th.
Better heights above sea level. For places we have not stored, the elevation shown on the page now comes from the weather forecast's own terrain data, instead of a placeholder of zero.
Nearby airports anywhere. The nearby-airport weather card now finds airports with live reports wherever you are, not only a short built-in list. Near Phuket it now shows Phuket International.
More countries behind the scenes. Country information for the whole world has been added to our places data.
Fixed
No more dead-end results for countries. Searching for a country used to offer a page for its centre point, which was not a useful place to get weather for. Those results are gone.
"No airport nearby" where there is one. The airport card no longer says there is no airport within range when one is only a short distance away.
Known issues
Place names for a new spot can be general. When we name a place on the spot, we use a city-level name, so you may see a municipality name rather than the town you know.
Developer API keys are not live yet. Behind-the-scenes sign-in groundwork for upcoming developer API keys is in place, but nothing is available to use yet.
This release makes the app load quickly and stay steady on phones, especially iPhones, and makes places outside Africa work as well as places at home.
Improved
Places anywhere in the world. Searching for a town or city outside Africa now opens its weather page. Visitors outside Africa see weather for where they are on the home page instead of an empty list, and country names are written out in full instead of as short codes.
A lighter page for each place. The small map on a place's page is now a simple map picture, so the page loads faster and uses less data. Tap it to open the full map.
Kinder to older phones and data saver. The moving sky behind the weather becomes a still picture when your phone asks for less motion, has data saver on or is short on memory, and it pauses while you scroll.
The rain radar no longer stalls. When live radar is briefly unavailable, the map carries on straight away instead of waiting for it, and the "now" radar picture is always from the current hour.
A refreshed bottom bar on phones. Map, My Location and Locations sit along the bottom, with your saved places just above. Swiping between places works as before.
Fixed
No more slow load or black screen. On some phones, mostly iPhones, pages loaded slowly or went black while the app drew everything a second time. Pages now appear straight away.
The top bar and the bottom bar stay in place while you scroll.
Sections appear before you reach them instead of popping in late as you scroll.
Even spacing. Sections with nothing to show no longer leave double gaps on the page.
Map credits appear once instead of twice.
Security
Fewer outside services. The app's fonts now come from our own site, so your browser no longer contacts an outside font service on every page.
Clearer privacy policy. When you search for a place by name, the words you type can be sent to our place-search provider to find it. The privacy policy now says so.
Known issues
The live rain radar layer can be empty for part of an hour when demand is high. Forecasts, rain charts and everything else on the page are not affected.
This release brings weather made for farming to every place in the app, plus a new way to move around on your phone and a clearer weather map.
New
A farming page for every place. Open a place and choose Agriculture to see the next 16 days of rain against the water your soil loses, soil moisture and soil temperature at several depths, the best hours to spray, and how much warmth your crops have built up so far.
A farm snapshot on each place's page. One card tells you whether today is a good day to spray, plant, harvest or irrigate, with rain, soil moisture and frost or heat risk at a glance.
Advice for your crops. Pick the crops and livestock you look after in My Weather, and the farming page shows notes for each one, a planting and harvest calendar, and how the last 30 days compare with a normal year.
A farming briefing from Shamwari. When you are signed in, Shamwari writes a short, plain-language briefing for your place and your crops.
Improved
More local advice. Weather summaries now take each place's seasons, usual climate, soil and crop calendar into account.
A new bottom bar on phones. A floating bar gives you the map, your saved places and your Locations list in one tap.
A clearer weather map. The panel at the bottom folds away, the legend shows units, and the rain timeline has play, pause and step buttons. Times are shown in the place's own time zone.
Security
Stronger protection in your browser. The site now tells your browser to apply stricter safety rules, and only our own apps can use the parts of our service that are not public.
More careful with your location. When you look at the weather for an exact spot, our analytics and logs keep only a rough area, never your precise position.
