"We have always been committed to bringing you accurate, timely weather forecasts, and our acquisition by Apple will help us further that goal more than ever, principally by look how much money I made oh my God that's an obscene amount that's sitting in my bank account right now, for that much money I can almost believe this is best for users wow"
Apple acquires Dark Sky
101–110 of 594 posts
Re: Apple acquires Dark Sky
#102Earlier quoted context omitted.
Et al - maybe, but Dark Sky built their own near-future "hyperlocal" forecasting engine and they were the first ones to do that. They basically invented the whole genre. Perhaps they expanded into repackaging NOAA data now, but that's not what Dark Sky is about.
Hyperlocal forecasting, who just ejected most of the world from their data collection pool.
IIRC they built the models with user data, but stopped collecting from phones because so many different sensors are used for rH and temp in phones plus being in pockets, battery temp, etc meant the data had too much variance. Even though I hate that they did this bc it's my favourite weather app, it actually would make sense to just use iphones if they were going to start collecting that data again since all the hardware is the same.
Re: Apple acquires Dark Sky
#103As an Apple user, it's always a bit bittersweet seeing announcements like this. It often means we'll see some nice upgrades to Apple services, but I feel bad for the non-Apple consumers of this info. It's not just Android, but 3rd party iOS apps benefit from the Dark Sky API as well (I use Carrot Weather which uses it for some of their feeds).
Aside from that, it's good to see a great team get some well deserved rewards for their notoriously great product. I just wish there were a better way for great devs to get rewarded.
Re: Apple acquires Dark Sky
#104> 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.
I believe this could be the main reason for the purchase. Apple is still using The Weather Channel as the data source for their stock app. If you take a look at their website you’ll soon realize they’ve jumped the ship and are highlighting articles such as “Koalas rescued from Australia’s Bushfires Return Home”.
It appears that The Weather Channel cares very little about showing the actual weather, and switching to a higher quality data source that’s now in-house is probably a really good idea.
Re: Apple acquires Dark Sky
#105Dark Sky is a very nice implementation, but what makes them unique, actually? They gather data from public sources, there's no user input to worry about having to censor, there's no networking effect in order to make it useful.
It's basically a perfect candidate for a lifestyle project. How big is the team? I'd gather the whole thing could be re-implemented (at least for a single market like US and Canada) in a few months by a single competent backend developer who knows a thing or two about UI/UX as well.
Anyone has any idea as to the purchase price?
Re: Apple acquires Dark Sky
#106Just a dirty move to shove aside all of us paying Android users. Was going to look at going back to Apple for my next phone but this just brought my opinion of Apple business practices back down to the garbage heap.
I am disappointed in the founders for letting that be a part of the acquisition.
Re: Apple acquires Dark Sky
#107This is really, really disappointing. I've been pretty critical of Dark Sky at times for being mediocre for more than maybe 12 hours out, but for very short term forecasts it worked great. I spent a fair amount of time outdoors and getting a 30 minute heads-up for "drizzle" versus "heavy rain" was excellent and really let me time how long to stay outside for. I'd really, really like a replacement on Android. While Wu…
I've been using https://www.ventusky.com/ for ever and it's better in my opinion then dark sky.
Does it do notifications of approaching rain?
Re: Apple acquires Dark Sky
#108Android users looking for an alternative, CARROT is fun, accurate, and worth the money http://www.meetcarrot.com/weather/
Looks like Darksky is a provider for CARROT, are the other provider choices comparable?
Yes, Foreca, ClimaCell are good, AccuWeather, Aeris Weather and MeteoGroup are also available.
Re: Apple acquires Dark Sky
#109Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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.
I mean this is basically it. Its effectively a hostile takeover of one segment of the app market.
Re: Apple acquires Dark Sky
#110Dark Sky is a very nice implementation, but what makes them unique, actually? They gather data from public sources, there's no user input to worry about having to censor, there's no networking effect in order to make it useful. It's basically a perfect candidate for a lifestyle project. How big is the team? I'd gather the whole thing could be re-implemented (at least for a single market like US and Canada) in a few m…
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