RainViewer 8.0 for iOS is out. On iOS 26 the app adopts Apple’s Liquid Glass design. On every iPhone and iPad, the map screen is simpler: the name of the active layer is written on the map, the player shows one time, playback options live behind one button, and a new fullscreen mode gives the whole screen to the radar. The radar data is the same. What changed is how much of the screen it gets, and how fast you can read it.
Why we waited a year for glass
Apple presented Liquid Glass more than a year ago. We did not rush to adopt it. People open a weather radar several times a day, and a change of look should feel like a smooth step, not a surprise. So we waited until most of our users had moved to iOS 26, and used the time to do the redesign properly.
Glass is demanding. It floats over content and lets it show through, so it only looks right when there is little of it. Put a glass player over a map with a dozen buttons and labels, and you get translucent layers stacked on top of each other. To make glass work, we had to make the screen simple first.
That is how a design update became a product update. Every control on the map screen had to justify its place, or leave. Most left. What stayed is the radar, one player, one layer indicator, and one button that hides everything else.
The layer name is now written on the map
This is the most visible change. Before 8.0, the layer button was an icon: a small square of red, yellow, and green precipitation colors. Radar, Forecast, the satellite precipitation estimate, and Radar and Satellite all used almost the same icon, and it was hard to tell which of the four you were looking at.
Now the button sits on the left side of the map and shows the layer name as text: Radar, Satellite, Radar and Satellite, Satellite Plus, Forecast 72h, Temperature, or Rainfall Totals (QPE). You know what is on the screen without opening anything. Tap it, and the same layer selection screen opens as before.
One time on the player
The old player showed several time values at once: a relative time, a clock time, “now”, and a server sync timestamp. Some of them were technical values that helped us more than they helped you.
The new player shows one time: the moment you are looking at. The LIVE badge still tells you when you are on the freshest frame. The player is more compact, and it expands only when you open the options.
Animation speed is new on the player. Before 8.0 it was hidden in Settings. Now it sits next to the past and forecast intervals, behind one arrow button. Open it, pick the range and the speed, close it. Three options in one place instead of three places on the screen.
Fullscreen mode instead of in-app sharing
RainViewer had its own sharing feature for years. It was built when a phone could not easily capture a screen animation on its own. That has changed: every phone now records the screen, edits the clip, and sends it anywhere in a few taps. So 8.0 removes in-app sharing, and we try something simpler instead.
A new eye button hides the interface. What stays is the map, the radar, and a small RainViewer mark in the corner. Take a screenshot, or record the storm animation with the built-in screen recorder, and share it with whatever app you like. The result is prettier than the old share screen ever was, and you are in control of it.
This is an experiment. If you miss something from the old sharing, tell us.
Fewer buttons on the map
Two more buttons left the map. The share button is gone with the sharing feature. The favorites button is gone too: your favorite locations are still one tap away on the Forecast screen. A compass appears next to the location button when you rotate the map, and disappears when you do not need it.
If you look for something that used to be on the map, here is where it went:
- Layer button: left side of the map, now with the layer name.
- Past interval, forecast interval, animation speed: the arrow button on the player.
- Search: the bottom tab bar on iOS 26. On iOS 18 it stays at the top.
- Share: removed. Use fullscreen mode and your device’s screenshot or screen recording.
- Favorites: the Forecast screen.
Two versions of iOS, one idea
On iOS 26, RainViewer uses Liquid Glass across the map screen. The player, the tab bar, and fullscreen mode are glass, so the radar stays visible through the controls. Search moves into the native bottom tab bar, where your thumb already is.
On iOS 18, the map keeps the look and feel you know. We did not want an imitation of glass on a system that does not have it. But all the improvements are there: the layer name on the map, the new buttons, fullscreen mode, the compact player with its animations, and the honest timeline. Same simplicity, familiar look.
iPad gets its own layout
iPad is no longer a stretched iPhone screen. Content is centered for the larger display, navigation fits the device, and the map stays correct at any window size, including Split View and Stage Manager. Glass applies here too on iPadOS 26.
An honest timeline
This one does not show on screenshots, but it matters if you use the timeline seriously. On long ranges, frame markers used to sit so close that they merged into a solid line. You could not tell a real gap in radar coverage from a limit of the drawing.
In 8.0, marker density adapts to the range. On short ranges every frame has its own marker. On long ranges, such as 48 hours, or 12 hours and more with 2-minute updates , RainViewer draws a small marker at a regular step and a taller one every hour or two. You can still count frames instead of seeing a bar. A gap in coverage has no frames, so it has no markers, and it stays visible as a gap at every range. Haptic feedback still fires on every real frame, even the ones that are not drawn. A fast swipe does not skip frames silently.
Everything else still shines
The redesign touched the frame around the radar, not the radar itself. Everything you use every day is in place:
- Tap on the map to see precipitation details at that point.
- Hurricane and storm tracking with tracks and forecast cones.
- Precipitation arrows that show where the rain is moving.
- The Forecast screen that takes you through the day, hour by hour.
- Pro Radar with raw station data, tilt angles, and dual-polarization products.
- Rainfall Totals (QPE) that shows how much rain has actually fallen.
Everything about the rain, we still compute ourselves: the radar composite from hundreds of stations, the nowcast, the arrows, the totals. That is our advantage, and it is why the map can be this simple on top.
Apple Watch
If you have an Apple Watch, try the watch app. It was rebuilt in the previous update, with a radar complication on the watch face and an hourly forecast for the next 12 hours, or 24 hours with Premium. One glance at the wrist answers the same question the map does: is it going to rain soon?
Tell us what you think
Update RainViewer to 8.0 on iOS and open the map. If something feels off, or something you relied on is missing, write to us. This release is built on what people told us, and the next one will be too.
RainViewer
