How The Weather Channel supplanted Yahoo as the source of weather data in iOS 8
It may fly under the radar for most folks, but weather data in iOS 8 will no longer be powered by Yahoo, being supplied by The Weather Channel instead. Seeing how Yahoo has been providing weather data for iOS devices for years, it's only natural to wonder how it lost such prominent placement within the iOS ecosystem.
To that end, Kara Swisher of Re/Code has the scoop, writing that Weather Channel CEO David Kenny helped affect the change:
To convince Apple to make the shift and cut Yahoo out of the middle, the Weather Channel added a lot more technology and information to the offering that it does not provide to Yahoo. That includes more weather specificity related to the location of a user, a nine-day forecast (up from five), a weather-conditions summary and more.
"Yahoo had been renting ocean-front property for years and did not realize the lease was up, and the Weather Channel slipped right in and took it," said a Yahoo exec, who said the company acted too late to save the deal. "It's a high-profile loss."
All in all, this can't be good news for Yahoo given that the company, according to reports from earlier this year, was hoping to work more closely with Apple to get Yahoo properties more prominently featured within iOS. Yahoo's alleged desire to pitch Apple on the idea of making its search engine the default within iOS now seems more laughable than ever.
