Apple's Weather App Won't Say It's 69 Degrees (theverge.com) 177
An anonymous reader shares a report: If you're an iPhone user, the weather is always a particularly nice 70 degrees. Or 68 degrees. Any temperature but 69 degrees, actually, because it turns out that the built-in weather app on some versions of iOS -- including the current version, iOS 14.6 -- will refuse to display the internet's favorite number, even if the actual temperature in a given location is, in fact, 69 degrees. It's not clear if this is a bug or an intentional attempt from Apple to cut down on 69-related humor. The rounding is only visible in the weather app itself: clicking through to Apple's source data from Weather.com will show the proper temperature, as does Apple's home screen widgets.
Comment removed (Score:3)
(not) (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I heard it also doesn't show 420 degrees, haven't tried it though...
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Streisand Effect (Score:2, Insightful)
In 3, 2, 1...
20.5C (Score:5, Interesting)
It's probably because 69F is 20.5C, so if they take data in C and convert it they always get 68 or 70.
Re:20.5C (Score:5, Insightful)
An interesting theory, and should be testable: Are there other temperature numbers that never appear?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: 20.5C (Score:3)
Re: 20.5C (Score:5, Funny)
Wow even I can't say "Ãoe69Ã when asked ÃoewhatÃ(TM)s 3 times 23Ã" :-)
Re: (Score:3)
No, let's all scold Slashdot for not fixing this flaw. I start.
Idiots. Can't even implement Unicode correctly.
Re:20.5C (Score:5, Informative)
An interesting theory, and should be testable: Are there other temperature numbers that never appear?
Looks like it. Flipping through my phone's weather data for a couple different cities, it tends to show even numbers in the 60s - 64, 66, 68, 70 - and not the odd numbers, but in the 70s, it's odd numbers and not evens - 73, 75, 79. In the 80s, I see 81, 82, 84, 86, and in the 50s, I see 52, 54, 55, and 57...
And now testing it in Excel, you're exactly right - all of those numbers are single degrees in C, converted to F, and then rounded to the nearest integer. You can only get the following values in F: 50, 52, 54, 55, 57, 59, 61, 63, 64, 66, 68, 70, 72, 73, 75, 77, 79, 81, 82, 84, 86, 88, 90, 91, 93, 95, 97, 99, 100, 102...
So, yeah, you got it.
Re: (Score:2)
My Apple Watch - which feeds off the Apple weather app - was reporting 63 degrees a bit earlier this morning.
Right now it says 66... I'm going to try and see what numbers it hits or misses as the temp goes up!
Re: (Score:2)
Interesting... the Accuweather app just ticked up to 67F, and the Apple Weather app switched to 68F.
Re: (Score:2)
Ha! And now it jumped from 68 to 70! So either the conversion / rounding argument is correct, or the app has some other limitation (perhaps related to not wanting to poll the servers too often).
Re: (Score:2)
Re:20.5C (Score:5, Funny)
But we wanted a nice conspiracy theory, not just a simple fact of Math Rounding.
Why follow the simple and well explained idea. Where we can have some complex story of intrigue, were they are board members debating over what numbers to show. And people using these missing values as secrete meanings, as it uses 69 Degrees as a code to send over the data to Apple. But you don't notice it because it will only show 68 or 70.
This is a Science and Technology Website, straight forward and logical answers have no place here. What do you think this is 1998!
Mars Climate Orbiter's razor: (Score:2)
Never attribute to political correctness what can be explained by sloppy conversions.
Re: (Score:2)
/utter unsurprise that Apple works in metric.
Note the lack of precision. Just sayin'.
Wow, being bad on purpose? (Score:2)
I'm hard pressed to imagine that the hardware produces integers. It seems more likely that the temperature sensor would be inherently analog. This makes me wonder what the maximum error is, given two roundings; but I'm too lazy to compute it.
Re: (Score:2)
Verified that I have many 69F (after conversion from C) readings in our logs.
I also have some experience with thermocouples tied directly to ADCs, and yes, they're analog, and yes- you get as much precision as you want (though how much of that precision is noise will vary depending on all the factors involved in the reading)
Re:20.5C (Score:5, Informative)
Close. My Toyota behaves this way as well. Temperate is in Celsius, turned into an int, and then converted. There are numerous values that get skipped, including 69.
So this is not a conspiracy, just a unit conversion rounding error.
Re: (Score:2)
Close. My Toyota behaves this way as well. Temperate is in Celsius, turned into an int, and then converted. There are numerous values that get skipped, including 69.
So this is not a conspiracy, just a unit conversion rounding error.
Does your car ever display 67 degrees F?
Re: (Score:2)
Why yes...yes it does.
I dunno if it displays in C....but if so, there's likely a setting I have to change somewhere, but I have no need to see temp in C. No one else here does either for the most part.
Re: (Score:2)
Would love to know if it was deliberate, i.e. they understood the limitation and accepted it. It was kind of glaring to me, but then I often spot things like this when debugging.
It's definitely the kind of thing that people unfamiliar with how computers handle numbers accidentally end up doing.
Re: (Score:2)
Right now, we just don't know. You and the other conspiracy theorists have to accept that.
Followed by
And for the record: Fundamentalist religious censorship is not exactly uncommon in the good old US of A and of freedom.
I honestly hope I am missing with whoosh.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Call round instead of floor? Or, since the temp is probably integer but tenths of a degree unit, convert to display float correctly?
There is no excuse for whatever this illiterate, lazy progr...
Hey! He's probably a kid intern.
Fine, ...this intern's lazy, illeterate, established programmer code review peers didn't notice.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Or, you know, the Celsius temp being rounded then converted to Fahrenheit is a more plausible scenario then some person at Apple saying that 69 is a bad number?
Re: (Score:2)
Look dudes. I have worked on temp displays in instrument panels. Temp is integers, but units is tenths or even hundredths. This comes on over most likely CAN car network. So they do know the value, and it is translated by the processor before display to F if that is the selected display units. There is no need for simply dropping the tenths rather than doing a proper rounding to integer.
And mathematically that is more accurate considering the error bars in the original, most likely Celsius measurement.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
It is possible it is rounding to the nearest degree in C before converting, and then rounding to the nearest degree in F. This would also skip 71, and pretty close to 1/2 the values.
If they round to the nearest 1/2 degree in C before converting and then truncate to F then it would skip 69 but that seems less likely they would mix truncation and rounding. If they round to 20.5, convert to 68.9 and then round then you get 69.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: 20.5C (Score:2)
Many cheap sensors only do full degrees on Celsius.
Anything above 25 is too hot for comfort anyway.
Re: (Score:2)
It's not particularly bad practice since you're using the temperature at a particular spot as a stand in for the actual temperature in a fairly large area. There's probably a standard deviation of at least a couple degrees.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I think that may actually be what is happening. Somebody noticed that 69 is skipped and failed to notice all the other numbers that are skipped.
Re: 20.5C (Score:2)
I had a similar thought. 20C is 68F, and 21C is 69.8F which is rounded up to 70F
It'd be easy to test for someone who has an iPhone. In terms of amplitude 1C=1.8F, so it should skip many!
Re: (Score:2)
This.
Sloppy conversion / rounding errors occur in many products. Here for example, I have a Halo reader [haloscanner.com] that can read the temperature off of Destron Fearing Lifechip Bio-Thermo [cckoutfitters.com] RFID microchips: the microchip encodes and reports the temperature in tenths of degree Fahrenheit over 74F. The Halo reader gets that value, converts it to C, then (incorrectly) rounds off the first floating point digit. As a result, when displayed in Celcius, the temperature series is missing some values - like 36.0C, 36.1C, 36.2C,
Re: (Score:2)
an american company using celsius as the default source? nah. no american company is that competent.
i don't like F, but it allows for more precision regarding temperature for weather related purposes if you can only stick to integers. plus F is still the standard in the US.
Re: (Score:2)
Is that precision meaningful to you when you're getting dressed in the morning?
I'm impressed if you can tell the difference between 68F and 69F by feel.
Re: 20.5C (Score:2)
It really bothers me in my car thermostat.
I know it doesn't actually make a difference, but jumping 68->70->72 bothers me.
I am aware this is not rational.
Re: (Score:2)
Mine goes up in units of 0.5 degrees C.
Re: (Score:2)
US units are all legally defined in terms of international units. Pretty much everything measures in international units and then converts for Americans.
Re: (Score:2)
A proof that in the metric system 69 is not only fun but hotter too.
Although, in length however...
Re: (Score:2)
It will take some time for women to figure out that 10 cm isn't long.
Re: (Score:2)
Right now my own home made temperature probe
https://flightmaker.hopto.org/... [hopto.org]
is showing 25.6C 69.1F
let's see if it changes to the desired value in a moment...
Re: (Score:2)
If that were the case there would be no 67F. In fact there would be a lot of numbers missing if it were just a C conversion problem. I'm not an Apple user, but can anyone confirm they don't get 67F?
Or for that matter looking at temperatures from 0C to 39C if you do =round((C*9/5)+32, 0)
You would be missing the following numbers:
33F, 35F, 38F, 40F, 42F, 44F, 47F, 49F, 51F, 53F, 56F, 58F, 60F, 62F, 65F, 67F, 69F, 71F, 74F, 76F, 78F, 80F, 83F, 85F, 87F, 89F, 92F, 94F, 96F, 98F, 101F
Re: (Score:2)
Screw /. and it's latin1 only input.
Lameness filter encountered. Post aborted!
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
It's probably because 69F is 20.5C, so if they take data in C and convert it they always get 68 or 70.
This is mathematically inept on their part. It's 68.9 degrees F, so rounded would be 69. But one wouldn't drop the additional precision of the .9 to begin with.
20.5 C means either accuracy to tenths, C, or perhaps half a degree, depends on the measurement sensor. In either case, you don't lose enough accuracy converting to F to justify dropping the tenths, F, and, if you do, round rather than just drop it.
Fine. Let'a get into it. With no other knowledge of the sensor, 20.5 C means 20.45C to 20.54999 C.
Fake news! (Score:3)
You guys will believe anything. Over the weekend the app had no problem showing me 420!
It all comes down to nerd programmers (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
the calculator had a similar bug (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
69 (Score:2)
It's whats for dinner!
And the time is never 4:20 (Score:2)
Warm Boot on an Apple ][ (Score:2)
The value was 45 in hex, which is 69 base 10.
So, back in the days, they had a sense of humor
Re: (Score:3)
Apple ][ or Apple ][+ ?
On the Apple ][ pressing Ctrl-Reset always resets the PC to $FF59. There is no way to change this behavior.
On the Apple ][+ (the Autostart ROM) you could do POKE 1012,XX to cause pressing Ctrl+Reset do a hard reset. The reason I say XX is because it depends if you are running under DOS 3.3 or ProDOS so the value changes. The reason it works is because pressing Ctrl+Reset would jump to the Reset vector address stored at $FFFC. Eventually the ROM at $FA85 would check if location (mem
Re: (Score:2)
>On the Apple ][ pressing Ctrl-Reset always resets the PC to $FF59.
That's a later ][.
Initially, Reset worked without the control key.
You could then get into BASIC either with the loaded program (and variables?), or with a clean slate.
Esc-B and Esc-D? It's been, uhm . . .
(OK, it was back when I was running around the neighborhood with a push lawnmower, instead of chasing folks of my own lawn . . .)
Re: (Score:2)
Ah, yes, Control wasn't originally needed when pressing Reset. Due to the accidents of people pressing Reset by itself Apple added the "Control" guard. Oh wow, you really are going back. I didn't think you were using an original Apple ][ but sure enough you were! ;-)
No I'm really curious what poke that was!
Re: (Score:2)
you can probably find the old "red book" on line somewhere.
The manual that came with them, but apparently went to press before the versions of the machine that actually shipped.
It generally assumed that you had bought the board, like the original Apple, rather than getting a keyboard, case, and power supply. It also described a rather standard version of the Star Trek game, rather than the unique Apple Trek that actually came.
It had ROM dumps, all the technical details, memories locations, etc.
I really don
How childish (Score:2)
Although I am not sure who is more childish: those who post 69-related humour; or Apple that tries to stop it.
Anyway: it should be in Centigrade, the USA is one of very few countries that use Fahrenheit [worldpopul...review.com].
Re: (Score:2)
Firstly, it's humor that gets some of us through our days and 69 humor is particularly a good topic.
I could argue for and against using C for reporting environment temperature. One one hand, F is more accurate than C. On the other hand, when dealing with our normal, daily stuff, the accuracy is not needed. For almost everything, anything that can happen at 68 can happen at 69, except 69 means we do each other and 68 means you do me and I'll owe you one.
Re: (Score:2)
I am a Brit. When I was a kid (almost 69 years ago) we measured weather temperature in Fahrenheit. We decided to join the rest of the world an converted to Centigrade. We survived, some people grumbled but we learned new numbers, the sky did not fall in. Are you saying that the peoples of the USA will not be able to cope ?
Re: (Score:2)
The best you can say is 'we survived, the sky did not fall in'? Surely there must have been some enormous benefits to the average citizen to justify the change, right? OK, maybe not enormous benefits. Some benefits? Any benefits?
Re: (Score:2)
Ok..survived.
But, by doing this and going through the changes and "surviving", what exactly were the major net benefit to the citizens after the change?
I mean, I don't really see any compelling reason for the US to switch in that doing so, would cause problems, and yet, I can't really see a perceptible benefit?
Is the benefit ju
Re: (Score:2)
Are you saying that the peoples of the USA will not be able to cope ?
I am an American citizen, and yes, the majority of my fellow citizens will be completely unable to cope. There has been a very successful IQ Reduction Program over the past few decades.
Re: (Score:2)
OK, obviously superior super genius. How about you lay out for us simpletons, in easy to understand terms, EXACTLY what benefits we can expect from changing to the metric system. And be sure to include any associated costs.
Re: (Score:2)
what benefits we can expect from changing to the metric system. And be sure to include any associated costs.
It's what the majority of the world uses. The cost savings will be the elimination of the need to convert. Not to mention the increase in sales to customers who don't want to stock two sets of tools.
Re: How childish (Score:2)
Sweden also have miles. They are 10km long.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: How childish (Score:2)
I foresee construction and what not being expensive to convert.
Not for new homes, but for repairs.
Either everything is sold on slightly different size sheets and you need double the stock at places like home depot until 4'x8' becomes so rare (my house isn't particularly well made and is 100 years old, so it'll be a while) that 4x8 becomes a specialty item and requires cutting from bigger sizes with scrap.
Similar for all the various structural parts.
Or everything remains the same size and is just sold in mm,
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Yup, those good old American units like the British Thermal Unit.
Re: (Score:2)
And Fahrenheit [wikipedia.org].
Re: (Score:2)
Next you'll be wanting me to give up all my recipes, teaspoons tablespoons, cups and pints!!?!?
For the love of god yes. Use weight, not volume. It's much more consistent because you don't have to worry about compacting stuff.
Back in the real world, conversion tables work just fine which is how I cooked non American recipes with American kit and how I cook American recipes back home.
Also your pints are wrong.
Cowering Puritan Crap (Score:2)
Why Not Remove 71 and 4 (Score:2)
the internet's favorite number ? (Score:2)
not the favorite number !
I asked all my nerd friends in our Moms' basements about 69 and got nothing but blank stares. So I did a poll: What's your favorite number? After disqualifying number two; 92% agreed that it is - 42 -
Hanlon's Razor (Score:2)
Never ascribe to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.
Re:Yes it's 69 obsession (Score:5, Interesting)
You're not far off. I have seen similar postings elsewhere.
It's similar to the reason mile marker 420 in Colorado was removed. All those people who thought it would be funny to have the marker when they're off getting stoned, completely ignoring the cost to replace the sign. Now there is a mile marker at 419.9.
This is why we can't have nice things. People.
Re: (Score:2)
Fucking, Austria [wikipedia.org].
Re: (Score:2)
There's some gold in that article:
"The Germans all want to see Mozart's house in Salzburg; the Americans want to see where The Sound of Music was filmed; the Japanese want Hitler's birthplace in Braunau; but for the British, it's all about Fucking."
Re: (Score:2)
It's similar to the reason mile marker 420 in Colorado was removed. All those people who thought it would be funny to have the marker when they're off getting stoned, completely ignoring the cost to replace the sign. Now there is a mile marker at 419.9.
Step 1: Bring widespread attention to 420 signs being stolen
Step 2: Start a new meme, “acting high while sober - 419.9”
Step 3: ???
Step 4: Profit
Re: (Score:2)
No doubt someone at Apple got tired of all the screenshots with 69 F at 4:20 PM being posted to Reddit every day with a title of "nice".
And this is why we can't have nice things.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
42
Re:no such thing as "exactly" for temperature (Score:5, Funny)
Dude! This site is marketed as "News for Nerds". If 69 is not an important number to nerds, then I don't know what is.
Sir, this is slashdot. 69 is an important imaginary number.
Re: (Score:2)
Go to weatherunderground.com. Open the Wundermap. Behold, all the weather stations near you right now. There's one in the park half a block from my house. Total for my small city is something like four dozen station. When I look at the temperature I am seeing the exact temperature for the station nearest me. Not the exact temperature for the whole city. Just the station nearest me. It's not a difficult concept. You even quote the article as saying "At a given location." But then you (deliberately?) go on to
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah you're on the spectrum buddy.
Re: (Score:2)
Apple's licensing terms probably has something about not being suitable for life safety applications.
Re: The real reason... (Score:2)
Ask Siri what a lemon party is.
Re: (Score:2)
I know that's just an expression but you got me wondering. Since thermometers weren't available at those times, I was wondering what that might actually be. Of course it was basically just:
Freezing. Fever. Boiling. Red hot. Yellow hot. Molten iron.
Specific artisans like potters, blacksmiths and bakers probably had some markers of temperature that were more subtle--different colors, how quickly something bubbles in a pan, etc. but these don't apply to weather.