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Apple acquires Dark Sky

blog.darksky.net

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Re: Apple acquires Dark Sky

#201

Post by [deleted] »

notthemessiah wrote: post #52
untog wrote: post #4

Sigh. I mean, congratulations to the founders of Dark Sky. It’s a wonderful app and they deserve all the money they’ll get from this and they deserve a lot of credit for not selling user data when almost every other weather app does. But shutting down the API and Android apps feels like an egregious move by Apple. And I hope we actually see a good improvement to the Apple weather app as a result of this. I remember a…

> 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…

[deleted]

Re: Apple acquires Dark Sky

#202

Post by SirLuxuryYacht »

dstaley wrote: post #78
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…

My primary use of the Dark Sky API is for minute-by-minute forecasts. I've yet to find another API that can answer the question "Do I have enough time to walk my dog before it starts raining?"

My go-to for this is an app called Radar Scope [0], which is the best $10 I've ever spent on an app. Its very easy to pull it up and look at the radar products with a useful color scale (as opposed to others which make light showers look like the apocalypse). Based on the quality I assume its target market is for stormchasers and weather professionals.

Its fast and has most of the radar products, including velocities. I originally bought it to answer the question "Should I shelter from this tornado?"

The downside is that there is no forecasting, but thats freely available through the NWS [1].

Not affiliated, just stoked. [0] https://www.radarscope.app/ [1] https://www.weather.gov/

Re: Apple acquires Dark Sky

#203

Post by Wowfunhappy »

ddevault wrote: post #130
kevindong wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone that's tried using the weather.gov API, let me just say it's atrociously bad. I'm sure the data is accurate and all, but the API is actively hostile towards developers.

The API does not seem that bad at all. Maybe it's been improved? https://www.weather.gov/documentation/services-web-api You can turn lat/long into a grid point: https://api.weather.gov/points/39.7456,-97.0892 Then a grid point into a forecast: https://api.weather.gov/gridpoints/TOP/31,80/forecast If you have your own GIS you can presumably store the grid points yourself.

Oh, it's JSON!

How did you get JSON? When I was looking I could only find XML, which I wasn't willing to deal with.

Shame it's US only...

Re: Apple acquires Dark Sky

#204

Post by joeblau »

dguo wrote: post #191

"We’re thrilled to have the opportunity to reach far more people, with far more impact, than we ever could alone." I generally don't mind "our incredible journey" posts that much, but I wonder how much mental gymnastics you need to justify that statement when you're shutting down platforms. Congrats to the Dark Sky team though. I've enjoyed using it. Time to look for a replacement as I only use the Android app and we…

If  shuts down the 1M+ (less than 5M) Google[1] accounts and then this weather app becomes the default system backing Siri, there will be a lot more users than the Google Play store users Dark Sky is losing.

Right now, Apple's weather is backed by Yahoo! so my guess is that Yahoo! is going away and all 1 billion  devices will now be using Dark Sky.

[1] - https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=net.darksky.da...

Re: Apple acquires Dark Sky

#206

Post by sb8244 »

dguo wrote: post #191

"We’re thrilled to have the opportunity to reach far more people, with far more impact, than we ever could alone." I generally don't mind "our incredible journey" posts that much, but I wonder how much mental gymnastics you need to justify that statement when you're shutting down platforms. Congrats to the Dark Sky team though. I've enjoyed using it. Time to look for a replacement as I only use the Android app and we…

I agree with you.

I could see justification in the fact that this integrated, by default, into every iOS device in the world is a bigger reach than the Android/API markets they have.

Re: Apple acquires Dark Sky

#207

Post by stephenr »

maliker wrote: post #132
thisisbrians wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

If it’s open source there’s no specific requirement for the project to provide a hosted instance.

Develop the (Ideally extensible) logic to parse a given government funded weather source into a common format, and have “API consumers” run their own instance of services (or set them up an instance for $ and use the profits to help with project costs).

Re: Apple acquires Dark Sky

#208

Post by huhtenberg »

airstrike wrote: post #184
huhtenberg wrote: post #36

Earlier 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.

> they were the first ones to do that. AccuWeather has been doing that for ages with MinuteCast. Dark Sky just looked more 21st century and was better marketed, probably

Careful there with unsubstantiated statements.

DarkSky - Nov 2011 - https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/jackadam/dark-sky-hyper...

MinuteCast - Mar 2014 - https://www.accuweather.com/en/press/24293762

That is, it's the exact opposite. MinuteCast is a rip of DarkSky.

Re: Apple acquires Dark Sky

#210

Post by penagwin »

TYPE_FASTER wrote: post #154
thisisbrians wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

I'd be interested in working on this.

I’d join in too
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