Apple’s weather app hides the “forbidden number”

Update, July 13, 2021 (1:45 p.m. ET): Thanks to Twitter to, we may have found a possible cause for the Apple weather app issue described below. It’s possible that Apple would convert Celsius temperatures to degrees Fahrenheit, which would cause some numbers to always be rounded up or down.

For example, imagine that the temperature is comfortable 20 degrees Celsius. The Fahrenheit conversion of this temperature would be 68 degrees. If the temperature rises to 21 degrees Celsius, that would convert to 69.8 degrees Fahrenheit – which would round up to 70 degrees. As a result, there would never be a temperature of 69 degrees displayed in Apple’s weather app.

While that makes a lot of sense, it still wouldn’t explain why iOS 15 doesn’t. It also wouldn’t explain why older versions of iOS don’t either. Why would only iOS 14.6 do this? That seems to be the big question now.

However, it seems that the possible explanation that Apple is deliberately hiding angel number 69 is probably not correct.

Original article, July 13, 2021 (12:24 p.m. ET): It is a centuries-old tradition. Someone on the Internet refers to the number “69” and no matter how innocent that reference may be, someone answers “Good”. It has happened millions of times over the years and now nothing can stop it.

However, Apple’s weather app doesn’t seem to want to play the game. The edge, the most recent stable version of iOS blocks temperatures at 69 degrees. Even if the source of the temperature reading (usually Weather.com) says it is 69 degrees in the area, Apple’s app will round to 70 or 68.

Related: The best weather apps and weather widgets for Android

You can see an example of the phenomenon in the image above. On the left, you’ll see a phone running a beta version of iOS 15. On the right, you’ll see an older iPhone running iOS 14.6 – the most recent stable version. The two phones are (obviously) in the same place, but the temperature readings are different. Obviously, something is wrong with Apple’s weather app.

According to The Rod experiments on the subject, the iOS 14.6 version of the app will not display the number 69 anywhere. Note that the 10-day forecast shown on the phone on the right also doesn’t have 69, while the one on the left shows the banned number. The edge also confirmed that old devices with outdated versions of iOS show 69 without fear.

This may be a bug in iOS 14.6. However, we have never seen such a specific bug. It doesn’t block 79, 89, 59, 49 … just 69. The edge contacted Apple for comment, and we’ll be sure to update this article once we know more.

And, just to keep the tradition alive: Pleasant.