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Apple acquires Dark Sky

blog.darksky.net

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Re: Apple acquires Dark Sky

#261

Post by fuzzy2 »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #26
geddy wrote: post #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 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. [1] https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/cdo-web/webservices/v2

I’m not in the US though...? :)

Re: Apple acquires Dark Sky

#262

Post by alephnan »

windyaskew wrote: post #66

> Our goal has always been to provide the world with the best weather information possible Sounds like they gave up on their goal or changed the definition of "the world" to 13% [1] of smartphone users. I always loved Dark Sky as an Android user, guess I'll find something else. [1] https://www.idc.com/promo/smartphone-market-share/os

Seems like many corporations, executives, politicians are blatantly contradicting themselves in the past few weeks

Re: Apple acquires Dark Sky

#263

Post by gorkish »

"Apple acquires" "Google acquires"

Shit like I need any more existential dread right now.

Wake me up when these phrases don't mean that a huge part of the company's userbase gets fucked.

I don't know if this is any better than when they used to just clone 3rd party killer apps (Sherlock). I guess it's more polite to hand over a big bag of money first.

Re: Apple acquires Dark Sky

#264

Post by madeofpalk »

yepthatsreality wrote: post #244
fooey wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

E^3 model[0], different parameters. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend,_and_extingu...

I mean in Epic's case, its really more like movie/tv/book deals, except with much more favourable terms to the creators.

Re: Apple acquires Dark Sky

#265

Post by rrix2 »

askafriend wrote: post #214
rrix2 wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

apple has 100 billion dollars in the bank, funding a world-class android team should be possible if not desirable for them as they transform more and more in to a services company

It's not about money. It's about focus. It's tempting to think you can just throw money at something and make it work. Unfortunately that's not how you build something great.

thanks for writing the exact same thing as the person next to you, but im not talking about "just throwing money", i'm talking about what they do when their ever-increasing war-chest stops increasing and they actually have to build things for people who can't afford their ever more expensive hardware. If apple thinks that they can continue running their ecosystem this way, i'm gonna be cackling in a few years.

Re: Apple acquires Dark Sky

#267

Post by somehnguy »

I never would have imagined paying money for a weather app, but last year I did just that by purchasing Dark Sky on iOS. It's just that much better than other weather apps I've tried.

I hope the service continues to be the best in the business as far as accuracy and ease of use goes. Congrats to the team as well.

Re: Apple acquires Dark Sky

#268

Post by duncanawoods »

jaywalk wrote: post #131
dmos62 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Many countries have some sort of "Competition Commission" whose role is to determine if acquisitions/mergers are bad for either the market or consumers. This might be for monopolistic reasons or other negative issues.

In this case, a platform buying up cross-platform software to eliminate support for competing platforms is clearly causing harm to consumers. In similar situations, a government might legislate to force companies to be either the pipe/platform or a content supplier but not both, to eliminate precisely this type of anti-consumer incentive.

Re: Apple acquires Dark Sky

#269

Post by floatingatoll »

kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #220
floatingatoll wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Extinguish" assumes they have no intention to replace third-party data harvesters with their own service. Apple currently redirects their platforms' weather data HTTP requests to third-party services like Weather.com, that are known for aggressively marketing and reselling user data as a primary revenue stream. Seems more likely they see this as a way to improve weather data for their customers without seeing their…

They could just get the weather data directly from the national bodies that provide it. It's not like they were hurting for money to staff their own weather division.

The Dark Sky app includes this checkbox on my device, implying they have additional data not available to the weather services:

Enlist your device's onboard sensors:

Send Pressure Data: Anonymous periodic barometer readings [toggle]

Re: Apple acquires Dark Sky

#270

Post by gregkerzhner »

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…

Interesting that Google makes a ton of apps for iOS but Apple doesn't go the other way.
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