Weather on Apple Watch defaults to Cupertino

I finally found the solution with the help of Apple Support. On your iPhone, go to settings, go to Privacy and Security, Click on Location Services, scroll down to Weather, Change the setting to Always from Never. I did not check if the other settings would work but “Always” solved my problem.

1. On your iPhone, open the Watch app
2. Scroll all the way down to Weather and tap on it
3. Tap on Default City and choose Current Location or select a specific city you'd like to get info about

This is a quick check to see whether the setting is not set to something else than what you believe it should be.

Still doesn’t work

when I power off sand restart it defaults to Cupertino.

I’ve taken it the Genius Bar they reset the watch and said it’s connecting to phone but still same. I had to reset my phone but still same issue

it was working fine till Christmas

Yes this has just started happening to me. The weather complication on my watch face keeps going back to Cupertino even though it's not on my phone.

It keeps adding Cupertino to the list of weather cities on my watch even after I delete it on the watch.

This is clearly a new bug that just cropped up - please fix it!

I've been bothered by this repeatedly over the last month.

I did a chat session with Apple Support to try to get a handle on what is going on. They're going to call me back on Monday to discuss it further.

When you are collecting information on this issue, its best to do so taking precise notes on actions you take and accurate observations.

Situation: Watch shows my correct list of locations for weather. Powering off and powering back on causes the watch to show Cupertino and New York.

Iphone Settings:

iPhone Location services on

Weather Settings on iPhone:

Location Access off for Weather app

Siri and Search all on;

Fahrenheit checked and spelt correctly (who knew there was an h in there.)

Privacy Reset Identifier off

iPhone Weather shows a list of cities that you chose. :

Framingham, Ma

Boston, Ma

Rio Grande PR

Brattleboro, Vt

Watch Appearance and behavior

Watch shows temperature on the chosen watch face

Tap on Watch Temperature shows hourly weather for Framingham, Ma

Actions 1:

Power off the Phone,

Power off the watch with the side button (not the crown, the button). 12.Power on the watch with the side button.

Watch face says Loading Weather Data, Temperature shows "--"

Power on the iPhone

Wait

Result1:

Watch Face continues to show "Loading Weather Data after two minutes.

Actions 2: Click the -- in the temperature indicator on the watch face.

Result 2: Watch shows Cupertino weather.

Actions 3: Touch the < icon at the top.

Result 3: Watch shows Cupertino and New York in a list.

Action 4: Delete Cupertino by swiping left and touching X.

Result 4: Watch shows cities from your list except the default.

Action 5: Delete Cupertino by swiping left and touching the red X

Result 5 - iNCONSISTENT : Watch shows some of the iphone cities that show on your watch, but not all four. Starting over from Actions at #9, Sometimes there are two cities , sometimes three, never the default city

Action 6: Add the default city on the watch

Result: 6 - iNCONSISTENT :If you started with 2 of 4 cities, you now see 3 of the four that are shown on the iPhone. if you started with 3 of 4 cities shown all four now show in the watch. The default city is last in the list.

Actions7:

Move the default city to the top of the list on the watch

Add the missing city

Result 7: Missing city now appears in the list on the watch

Actions 8: Change back to the watch face showing the temperature and continue observations, especially when the watch is out of bluetooth range of the iPhone

Additional tests run with similar results:

• Run the test with iPhone weather setting: Allow weather to access Location set to Always. This test was run and the results were similar.

Additional tests to do:

• Run the test with Weather privacy setting Reset Identifier turned on. I have yet to run this test
• Run the test with Weather privacy setting Reset Identifier turned off, after running the test with it turned on.

• Did you make it through all that verbiage? Congratulations.
• Did you think of things you would do differently, or of additional actions or observations? Yes? - Enthusiastic Congratulations - You may qualify for a job as a software tester. Apply anywhere that's laid off a bunch of people lately and really wants to stay in business. They're going to need you. Additional training may be required. Caution: make sure its a real job with actual work to do.

I think I figured it out without needing to select “always” on location services. Just delete Cupertino from the list of cities on you Apple Watch weather app. After I did that, all the locations I have on my iPhone weather app just magically showed up as options on my watch.

I like this way better so it’s not always relying on my physical location.

Read through this thread and try the things that I mentioned in it. You might need to click on "see all replies".

Weather app on Apple Watch 8 - Apple Community

After you're through it, come back to your thread (right here) and let us know if none of that got it working.

I posted a bunch of different settings to check and how to find those settings.

Apple watch doesn't do that. Use your iPhone to see weather in locations you're not currently in. And with Location Services turned off, as you've learned, you don't get any city which you want, whether it be Cupertino or not.

If you don't like this, let Apple know by providing feedback via this link --> Feedback - Watch - Apple

Mbarti wrote:

Really Apple, this is one of the major functions of the watch. It’s been a bug for months and you haven’t fixed it yet? Are we to believe your resource-poor company simply doesn’t have the bandwidth to fix it? Boo. If you’re going to charge a premium for a wearable, freaking support it like you care about your customers.

Really? We don't have customers. We aren't Apple and you aren't writing anyone from Apple. And Apple won't see your comment here. This is a user to user only forum. Maybe read the full thread, where people have posted solutions to your concern and try them.

If you do want to complain to Apple, feel free to use this link --> Feedback - Watch - Apple

In a phone call with apple support they suggested actions that apparently fixed the issue with the weather.

1. Uninstall weather app
2. Reinstall weather app
3. Upgrade IOS version from 16.3.1 to 16.4
4. Upgrade Watch os to version 9.4
5. Open the weather app on the iphone. click the menu icon in the lower right corner if you're seeing just one location. You should now see all your previously selected locations and a new one: "My Location". I previously saw 4 locations, now I see 5.
6. Take the watch off the charger and you should be good to go.

Note that previously you could recreate the Cupertino weather issue by powering off the watch and powering it back on. Now when you do that, you see the notation "Loading Weather..." on the watch face, and although it takes a while, weather data for all your locations will appear. and when you add or delete a location on the watch or in the weather app on the iphone, the change will be reflected on the other device immediately.

Great work Apple!

Solved:

Apple has released new versions of IOS and WatchOS that fix this issue:

Apple Recommended the following to me:

1. Uninstall weather app
2. Reinstall weather app
3. Upgrade IOS version from 16.3.1 to 16.4
4. Upgrade Watch os to version 9.4
5. Open the weather app on the iphone. click the menu icon in the lower right corner if you're seeing just one location. You should now see all your previously selected locations and a new one: "My Location". I previously saw 4 locations, now I see 5.
6. On the watch, you should see the same locations after they initially load after the upgrade or following a restart on your watch.

chad199 wrote:

Yes this has just started happening to me. The weather complication on my watch face keeps going back to Cupertino even though it's not on my phone.

It keeps adding Cupertino to the list of weather cities on my watch even after I delete it on the watch.

This is clearly a new bug that just cropped up - please fix it!

You are not writing anyone from Apple on this user to user only forum. Asking for this to be fixed here, gets you nothing. No one here can fix this if it is indeed a bug. But if it was a bug, it would be affecting everyone and it's NOT. Cupertino is not defaulting to my Apple Watch Ultra with WatchOS 9.3.

Use the Support Button at the top or bottom of this page to contact Apple. Or, if in the US call Apple at: 800-MY-APPLE

I am having the same issue and even though on my iPhone, I select the default city as my town. It continues to remain at Cupertino on the watch even though my iPhone is correct, I have restarted it to no effect.

Cupertino is in California and it's where Apple is headquartered.

There were new updates sent out for the phones and watches yesterday, maybe these updates will fix this issue for everybody.

First update your phones to 16.3.1

Then update your watches to 9.3.1

🤞🤞

Yeah, setting it to Always was overkill. The later solution to just remove Cupertino from your cities on Apple Watch and making sure location is on at least when the app is in use in widgets, etc or whatever that setting is all should do the trick.