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A run of hours in the forecast where every rule you set for an activity is met at the same time, and which lasts at least the minimum length you asked for. Clearing checks all ten days of hourly forecast against your rules and shows you the runs that qualify.

Tap Add activity on the Today tab and start from a template - running, cycling, drying washing, painting, stargazing, sailing and others - or build your own. Every template is only a starting point: open it and change any rule.

A rule is a condition on one measurement: rain chance at most 30 per cent, feels-like between 3 and 22 degrees, wind at most 19 mph. You can also set the hours and days you are free, a minimum length, whether it has to be daylight, and how long it has to stay dry afterwards.

Tap it. Clearing names the rule that failed and by how much - "rain chance 55%, over your 30%" - so you can see whether it is a near miss or nowhere close. Hours that nearly fit are drawn as near-misses rather than hidden, for the same reason.

A filled cell is an hour that fits. A hatched cell is one that fails a rule. A faint cell is outside the hours or days you said you were free. The pattern rather than the colour carries the meaning, so the strip reads in monochrome and with any colour vision.

Some activities need the weather to hold after you finish - paint has to cure, washing has to stay out. Set stays dry after on the activity and Clearing will only offer a window when the hours following it are dry too.

Ten days down the side, each with its own conditions, your activities across the top, and the longest window for each one on each day. It answers "which day suits which activity" in one look, where the Today tab answers "what can I do now".

Something you have committed to: a date, a time, a length and a place. Clearing gives it a verdict against that activity's rules and keeps watching it.

Plans are part of Clearing Pro.

Once a day, Clearing saves what the forecast said about your plan's slot. As the day approaches you can see the forecast settle or move - a plan that has looked wet for four days running is a different thing from one that only turned wet this morning. Past plans are kept for thirty days.

Yes. Open the plan and choose to add it to your calendar. Clearing hands the event to Apple's own editor, which saves it once you confirm - Clearing itself is never given access to your calendar and never reads it.

Three things, per activity, and each one is a switch you turn on yourself: when a window opens that was not there before; when a window is lost, with the reason it went; and when a window starts. There is also one daily briefing at a time you choose.

Alerts are part of Clearing Pro.

Check that notifications are allowed for Clearing in Settings, and that the individual activity has its own alert switches on - the two are separate on purpose, so turning the feature on does not announce every window you already knew about.

The window-start notification and the daily briefing are scheduled ahead, so they arrive whether or not iOS wakes the app in the background. Whether a new window is spotted while you are not looking depends on iOS granting background time, which it decides for itself.

Because a forecast is the same across a town, so the precise figure would be collected for nothing. Clearing asks for reduced accuracy only, and there is no setting anywhere to turn precise location on.

Yes. Search for a place on the Places tab and everything is calculated for that place. Clearing deliberately shows nothing rather than guessing at a location it does not have.

Anyone can search a place and see it. Saving places, keeping as many as you like, and pinning an activity to a particular one are part of Clearing Pro. Times are always shown in the place's own time zone.

Shows your activities and their next windows on your wrist, with complications for the watch face. It is told what to show by your iPhone rather than working it out itself, so the two can never disagree.

Home Screen and Lock Screen widgets for your next windows, and a Live Activity that runs while a window is open. All of them are part of Clearing Pro.

Free gives you two activities and the next 48 hours, with the full rules engine, the templates, the hour-by-hour breakdown and the Sky tab.

Clearing Pro adds the rest of the ten days, unlimited activities, plans and their drift record, alerts and the daily briefing, saved places, the widgets, the Apple Watch app, the Live Activity and iCloud sync.

It is £2.49 a month or £12.99 a year, and the yearly plan starts with 7 days free. Nothing you have made is ever deleted if a subscription lapses - the extra activities simply stop being calculated until it resumes.

Every forecast Clearing fetches costs money for as long as you keep using the app. A one-off price cannot cover an ongoing cost honestly, so there is no lifetime tier.

In Settings on your iPhone, under your name, then Subscriptions. Cancelling at least 24 hours before the end of the current period stops the next renewal; you keep Pro until that period ends.

Open Clearing on that device, bring up Clearing Pro and tap Restore. The subscription is tied to your Apple Account, so it covers every device signed into it.

Yes. It keeps the last forecast it fetched and everything - windows, the planner, plans - is calculated from that. You will see the time it was last updated rather than stale numbers presented as current.