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.
Of the many announcements made at Apple’s recent Worldwide Developers Conference, one that did not garner as much attention concerned the pre-installed weather app on the iPhone. The look, feel and data has been provided to Apple by Yahoo for many years, part of a deal that sends a lot of traffic back to the Internet portal and spurs a multitude of downloads of its own handsome weather app. So attractive, in fact, that the refurbishment of it was much touted by CEO Marissa Mayer and was well received by reviewers and users. The kudos were much deserved. But in the fall, Yahoo’s weather relationship with Apple will be blown off the device, a development that is a big miss for Mayer, who has aggressively pushed the company’s mobile efforts as a key part of Yahoo’s turnaround. The situation Yahoo finds itself in is due to a very crafty deal engineered by former Yahoo board member and Weather Channel CEO David Kenny, who has essentially shoved Yahoo off the key smartphone to be replaced by a new offering that he has been developing since he took over the weather news and information service last year. With it, he has unseated Yahoo from its important perch.
