I mean, if true - I offer my congratulations to the Dark Sky founders and I wish them the best of luck.
That said - part of me is wondering, it's April 1st tomorrow. Part of me is REALLY hoping it is a joke too!
EDIT: Grammar!
Apple acquires Dark Sky
21–30 of 594 posts
Re: Apple acquires Dark Sky
#22Very disappointed. I've been a Dark Sky API user since 2015. It's a huge disappointment that a cash flush, closed ecosystem company is purchasing and shutting down a unique data source for point prediction weather forecasts.
Re: Apple acquires Dark Sky
#23> Our API service for existing customers is not changing today, but we will no longer accept new signups. The API will continue to function through the end of 2021.
And yet another functional API shut down and privatized. This is the way of the web now, a few companies owning the data, and nothing cool left to mess around with.
I can't be the only one who has noticed this trend happening for years. You used to be able to scroll to the footer of practically any service and find an API link. No more.
Re: Apple acquires Dark Sky
#24> Our goal has always been to provide the world with the best weather information possible, to help as many people as we can stay dry and safe, and to do so in a way that respects your privacy. I don't understand how being acquired by Apple helps further that goal. Removing support for non-Apple devices seems to drastically lower the number of people who you are helping. I am interested in seeing what happens to this…
> I don't understand how being acquired by Apple helps further that goal. Removing support for non-Apple devices seems to drastically lower the number of people who you are helping. I would imagine that DarkSky will become the basis for the default weather apps in iOS and macOS, and the number of people who use those defaults is drastically higher than the number of people who use DarkSky iOS/Android as a third-party…
That thoroughly misses the point. They could do both. There is zero reason to shrink the addressable market other than Apple not wanting to play with others.
Re: Apple acquires Dark Sky
#25> Our goal has always been to provide the world with the best weather information possible, to help as many people as we can stay dry and safe, and to do so in a way that respects your privacy. I don't understand how being acquired by Apple helps further that goal. Removing support for non-Apple devices seems to drastically lower the number of people who you are helping. I am interested in seeing what happens to this…
> I don't understand how being acquired by Apple helps further that goal. Removing support for non-Apple devices seems to drastically lower the number of people who you are helping. I would imagine that DarkSky will become the basis for the default weather apps in iOS and macOS, and the number of people who use those defaults is drastically higher than the number of people who use DarkSky iOS/Android as a third-party…
That's a very good point. The number of people they are helping will drastically increase if that integration happens. It's unfortunate that the direct users who aren't on Apple's platforms can't continue to use it anymore.
Re: Apple acquires Dark Sky
#26> Our API service for existing customers is not changing today, but we will no longer accept new signups. The API will continue to function through the end of 2021. And yet another functional API shut down and privatized. This is the way of the web now, a few companies owning the data, and nothing cool left to mess around with. I can't be the only one who has noticed this trend happening for years. You used to be abl…
> a few companies owning the data
The data are public [1]. Dark Sky et al process and repackage those data, along with their own analytics and UI.
Re: Apple acquires Dark Sky
#27Good alternatives for both API and mobile Apps?
Re: Apple acquires Dark Sky
#28I get that these dumb acquisition blog-posts are practically lifted from a template and hardly mean anything, but please don't tell me that your goal is to "to help as many people as we can stay dry and safe" in practically the same breath that you announce you are killing the app on the world's most popular mobile platform.
Re: Apple acquires Dark Sky
#29I wonder if they ever used their barometer data. After announcing collection of barometric pressure from devices years ago, there was never an update.
FWIW I do this on Android in the US, expanding to iOS and internationally soon:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.allclearwe...
Am I the only one doing barometric pressure data research on Android now? Maybe IBM does it, it's also hard to say.
The areas of research that Dark Sky did not follow through with are disappointing. They seemed very focused on making math-statistics estimates of forecasts and never doing the real hard science.
Maybe Apple will pick up the slack.
Re: Apple acquires Dark Sky
#30Interesting that they just unilaterally state that your data is now subject to Apple's privacy policy.
Checking the policy in effect before the acquisition[1], it seems they disclosed the possibility of transferring data to an acquirer.
[1] https://web.archive.org/web/20200311172542/https://darksky.n...