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Apple acquires Dark Sky

blog.darksky.net

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Re: Apple acquires Dark Sky

#361

Post by windexh8er »

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've been a Dark Sky user since the beginning. I likely brought about a dozen users to their service over the years. This really sucks, but I'm sure for the founders it was worth it. Apple will lose a lot of viability in Dark Sky as they'll be cutting off sensor input - so I guess, I just don't understand the move. Sure, Apple weather sucks so maybe this replaces it?

I think the thing that frustrates me is that I've been a paying customer for a long time only for the parent purchaser to shut me out. Like I said, I'm glad for the founders, but as the parent here has stated - I highly doubt Apple will do much of anything with this.

Re: Apple acquires Dark Sky

#363

Post by kevindong »

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.

If you don't have precipitation data, then I would agree that it's fine. Their hourly forecast data is quite friendly.

But I wanted precipitation data so I had to use this endpoint: https://api.weather.gov/gridpoints/TOP/31,80

That endpoint groups hour-by-hour forecasts (see below) together to deduplicate data, but it makes it very painful to parse. For instance, "2020-03-31T15:00:00+00:00/PT4H" means that value is valid for 4 hours beginning at 2020-03-31T15:00:00+00:00. The durations varied from time interval to time interval and it made it super annoying to parse through.

{ "validTime": "2020-03-31T15:00:00+00:00/PT4H", "value": 0 }, { "validTime": "2020-03-31T19:00:00+00:00/PT1H", "value": 2 }, { "validTime": "2020-03-31T20:00:00+00:00/PT3H", "value": 4 },

Re: Apple acquires Dark Sky

#364

Post by emmelaich »

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…

He had a lifelong neurological condition. He didn't work for RCA. It wasn't just RCA that tried to restrict him. RCA did offer him a million dollars that he refused. He did hit his wife with a poker and she left him.

It's a terrible story and he was treated badly, but you're making it more dramatic than it was.

Re: Apple acquires Dark Sky

#365

Post by mrlala »

askafriend wrote: post #75
Larrikin wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is awful, atleast they are offering a refund but there is no point they couldn't just maintain the Android app

Focus is likely the reason they don't want to do it. Just because you can, doesn't mean you should.

>Focus is likely the reason they don't want to do it.

Yeah....

I'm sure it has nothing to do with apple trying to force people into their ecosystem by every measure possible. That is practically their mission statement.

Re: Apple acquires Dark Sky

#366

Post by Traster »

threeseed wrote: post #323
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…

> For companies like Apple, these acquisitions are more about killing competition This is just nonsense. Every acquisition they've ever done can directly be seen in future projects: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mergers_and_acquisitio... The products you don't see give a hint into their roadmap.

Is this acquisition going to give more people access to a great weather app or less people access to a great weather app?

It's going to be the same people, working on the same product, but now, it's going to unavailable via their cheif competitor. Tell me how on earth you can consider that not killing competition.

Re: Apple acquires Dark Sky

#367

Post by beart »

DiabloD3 wrote: post #94

As an Android user that uses Dark Sky: Fuck you. Everyone else is congratulating the team on a job well done, I'm not. I rely on Dark Sky because there are no better services, and it is a service I pay for. Now I'm going to have to switch to some second rate weather app that can't predict the weather worth a damn because it just regurgitates the NWS. God fucking damnit.

yes I agree. It may sound extreme but this small decision has actually turned me off from ever purchasing an apple product again (I do own an iPhone now but don't frequently use it. There is just no consumer friendly reason possible to shut the Android app off.

Re: Apple acquires Dark Sky

#368

Post by wink »

kvakkefly wrote: post #248
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…

You can try Yr: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=no.nrk.yr&hl=e... It is an app made by the Norwegian Meteorological Institute afaik and works quite well all over the world. I'm curious on how well it works where you live! They have open API's as well: https://api.met.no

Thank you, this looks really good.

Re: Apple acquires Dark Sky

#369

Post by Spooky23 »

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…

Apple always is rough with acquisitions of consumer stuff. Workflow is a great example, many of the third party integrations and Apple Watch support went poof.

Re: Apple acquires Dark Sky

#370

Post by tw04 »

enos_feedler wrote: post #349
tw04 wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Yes but that's inline with what you'd expect Apple to do though. I'd argue the exact opposite. They keep pronouncing they're now a services company. If that's TRULY their go-forward model, they should be selling services to the broadest possible audience. Shutting it down to other audiences tells me they're still a hardware company that can't see past their walled garden. If anyone at Apple is listening, I'll say it…

Apple has shown they are not afraid to build products that are 100% services (TV+, Music, etc). Just because a product is delivered as a service doesn't mean the correct strategy is to spray it everywhere. It's not a matter of seeing past the walled garden. So long as there is a roadmap for deep platform integrations (identity, payments, AR, GPU, etc) and the desire for those integrations to be 100% available to _any…

You sound like you're reading from the RIM playbook circa 2004. It's not a matter of IF, it's a matter of WHEN the product that kills them shows up. The only reason that Facebook hasn't already supplanted them is their horrendous record on security - eventually a player without that track record will come along and eat their lunch. Facebook messenger became "good enough" just about at the exact time the Cambridge Analytica scandal happened - at which point even the non-nerds started deleting their accounts and abandoning their messaging platform.
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