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Apple acquires Dark Sky

blog.darksky.net

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Re: Apple acquires Dark Sky

#131

Post by jaywalk »

dmos62 wrote: post #16
georgyo wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree, this seems like a cheap shot with no actual benefit.

It's important to acknowledge that there is a benefit: Apple products' value increases in relation to other platforms' when they introduce more exclusive offerings. The right to do this without repercussions is hurting IT. Big IT business is rife with anti-competitive crap that noone should put up with.

You really think Apple (or anyone else) should be forced to support software on a competing platform? That's absurd.

It's a crappy decision on their part, no doubt. But saying it should be illegal is way out of line.

Re: Apple acquires Dark Sky

#132

Post by maliker »

thisisbrians wrote: post #120
maliker wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ain't pretty matches my experience. My team pulls a lot of weather data for utility engineering work we do, and the NOAA APIs have proven very hard to navigate. Some data only available via FTP, lots of different weather station networks with different metrics (e.g. lots of variety in the cloud/irradiance data). Darksky provided a nice clean interface, but I guess we'll go back to cobbling things together directly fr…

Any clue how hard it would be to create an open-source alternative to the DarkSky API? My company needs one, too. Maybe we could band forces and organize an open-source alternative. I know it won't be as good, but I'm curious what other people in our position think...

We'd be interested!

I think it will be pretty hard to do well in open source though. Server costs and keeping things working when NOAA (etc.) sources change is probably going to be expensive.

Re: Apple acquires Dark Sky

#133

Post by yjftsjthsd-h »

StavrosK wrote: post #93
mrrsm wrote: post #7

> 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. It doesn't. I will found a company just to have it acquired, so my press release can be: > We had to choose between making shitloads of money, enough to not care about anything ever again, or let you continue seeing slightly more accurate weather. Guess what we chose, sucker! Thanks for giving us money, see you never.

As a user, I would actually be far less offended by such an honest statement. I find it difficult to blame people for wanting money, and trivial to demonize them for lying about it.

Re: Apple acquires Dark Sky

#135

Post by StavrosK »

yjftsjthsd-h wrote: post #133
StavrosK wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't understand how being acquired by Apple helps further that goal. It doesn't. I will found a company just to have it acquired, so my press release can be: > We had to choose between making shitloads of money, enough to not care about anything ever again, or let you continue seeing slightly more accurate weather. Guess what we chose, sucker! Thanks for giving us money, see you never.

As a user, I would actually be far less offended by such an honest statement. I find it difficult to blame people for wanting money, and trivial to demonize them for lying about it.

Yeah, exactly. I would appreciate them saying "we know this sucks, but it was a shitload of money, what would you do?".

Re: Apple acquires Dark Sky

#136

Post by toomuchtodo »

big_chungus wrote: post #117
toomuchtodo wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More importantly, this should be protected and demanded to be expanded upon by citizens . No one can acquire and shut down the National Weather Service, nor any apps they develop with public money released to the public domain. Protect public goods.

Dark sky is not a public good, it's a for-profit business that puts a shiny interface on the same information available to everyone. It also added user reporting and analytics, so added material value. The app cost money. Why don't you lobby your congressman to have NOAA develop a better app instead? You can't make a privately-developed program a "public good"; citizens can't just "demand" that dark sky remains indep…

You might re-read my comment. Nowhere do I say Dark Sky is a public good. I do lobby my congressperson for NOAA to have more open data practices and better funding for app development. Citizens can demand products from government be at parity or better than private corporation products, and government has the funding to do it. So why not do it?

Re: Apple acquires Dark Sky

#137

Post by yjftsjthsd-h »

cnst wrote: post #105

Dark 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…

> Dark Sky is a very nice implementation, but what makes them unique, actually?

Polish is everything.

Re: Apple acquires Dark Sky

#138

Post by fooey »

realityking wrote: post #124
notthemessiah wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I remember a few years ago Apple bought a fantastic public transit app (Embark?), shut it down and I still don’t think their Maps app comes close to the original transit app. When Edwin Howard Armstrong invented FM radio, he was working for RCA, which had everything invested in AM radio, an incompatible technology. RCA chose not to invest, and used their political clout to lobby the FCC to cripple FM radio, and the…

I don't know. How's Dark Sky competing with Apple? I don't think they derive much, if any, revenue from the Weather app. More likely they're paying for the data.

Maybe this is the start of the Epic Games business model.

Buy things and make them exclusive just so no one else can have them.

Re: Apple acquires Dark Sky

#139

Post by liyanage »

ryandvm wrote: post #98
joncp wrote: post #63

Let's not forget that, at least in the US, weather data is publicly funded and excellent forecasts are available at a very granular level. For example, here's the weather at Apple Park: https://forecast.weather.gov/MapClick.php?lon=-122.009263237... ... And here's the graph for up-to-the-minute detail: https://forecast.weather.gov/MapClick.php?lat=37.3367&lon=-1... It ain't pretty, but it works and you've already pai…

> It ain't pretty, but it works and you've already paid for it. I've been following the public weather data scene for a long time and I'm pretty sure that UX for all the NOAA/NWS web sites is horrible by design, so to speak. After all, there are plenty of well designed .gov sites (e.g. https://recreation.gov/ ), but just try browsing around weather.gov for a few minutes. It's horrible. I mean, the data is top-notch a…

> I'm pretty sure that UX for all the NOAA/NWS web sites is horrible by design

That's spot on, John Oliver did a whole episode about this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qMGn9T37eR8&feature=emb_titl...

Re: Apple acquires Dark Sky

#140

Post by sauwan »

sandyarmstrong wrote: post #126
kyledrake wrote: post #33

> Android and Wear OS App > The app will no longer be available for download. Service to existing users and subscribers will continue until July 1, 2020, at which point the app will be shut down. Subscribers who are still active at that time will receive a refund. IBM bought the Weather Underground app and ruined it, and now Dark Sky was bought by Apple and they're ruining that too. Now I will have zero good weather…

I cannot begin to say how much IBM ruined Weather Underground. The app was _perfect_! I was thrilled to pay for it. Now it's probably the worst app on my phone and I should just delete it. It takes forever to start, more than half the time it loads no data, and even if it is loaded the UI redesign has made the whole thing slow and useless. Would love suggestions for another app on Android.

Totally agree. I find I have to load it, close and reopen the app about 95% of the time. Hugely bummed these two apps are going into the wastebin. Certainly leaves a huge void for us Android users.
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