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Apple acquires Dark Sky

blog.darksky.net

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Re: Apple acquires Dark Sky

#371

Post by freedomben »

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.

Weather Timeline used to be awesome, but it used Dark Sky APIs and got shut down during this whole Apple acquisition thing. The app got acquired by MyRadar and they say it will be back using the MyRadar APIs, but will probably never be as good without the Dark Sky data behind it.

Re: Apple acquires Dark Sky

#372

Post by zachberger »

duanem wrote: post #354
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 felt a little slighted (in a cheeky way) by the "zero good weather apps for Android" comment. Started writing then decided against it. Then I got this email in my inbox from a user :-) Dark Sky is shuttering their Android app after being acquired by Apple. People are saying things like "Now I will have zero good weather apps for Android. " https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22740331 Flowx is better than Dark Sky!

I used to drive a convertible. I liked Dark Sky because I would get a warning notification if it was going to rain right were I was and I could go put the top up.

I haven't been able to find this type of notification in Flowx. Am I missing this, or by chance is it cmoing?

Re: Apple acquires Dark Sky

#373

Post by simonh »

kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #216
rapind wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a systematic problem with crony capitalism. It will always be with us so long as lobbying and corporate campaign donations are a thing.

Fingers crossed that all the shenanigans preventing cheap ventilators coming to market will force some regulatory action.

A badly made ventilator can kill you a lot faster than the virus.

Re: Apple acquires Dark Sky

#374

Post by philistine »

lozaning wrote: post #352
zcrackerz wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's because Google is an ad company while Apple is a hardware company.

Apple is a services company now according to them, and as demonstrated by the Apple tv app on my Samsung TV.

Apple has not described themselves as a services company. Tim Cook has said that growth in the company will come from services. So the company focuses on that. Apple provides some services, it is not a services company.

Re: Apple acquires Dark Sky

#375

Post by simonh »

JeremyNT wrote: post #310
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…

Sigh is right. I used and paid for dark sky on Android, and now it's dead. This is one way Apple tries to lock people in, and it's really frustrating. This isn't an efficient market situation, this is a monopolist protecting their walled garden kingdom by slurping up the cross platform innovators. I'm terribly disappointed in the Dark Sky authors for doing this to long time loyal customers, no matter what their paych…

How is iOS in any way, shape or form a monopoly?

Re: Apple acquires Dark Sky

#376

Post by cageface »

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's walled garden is more and more a shiny cage. Vote with your dollars and support more open alternatives. I switched to a Note 10 recently after using iPhones for years and I'm really enjoying the overall experience and the flexibility to do many things with my hardware that Apple feels I shouldn't be allowed to do.

Re: Apple acquires Dark Sky

#377

Post by rurp »

ngngngng wrote: post #62
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.

Is that all of Dark Sky's value proposition? They take a beastly API and repackage it into something pleasant?

You've basically described all commercial weather apps. Dark Sky (and some others) do incorporate other local sources of info, but free govt data covers much/most of what they use.

Re: Apple acquires Dark Sky

#378

Post by Zelphyr »

Traster wrote: post #366
threeseed wrote: post #323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

When I first read "killing their competition" I thought it meant killing competition in the form of weather apps. That didn't make any sense to me since Apple makes no money off the Weather app. Only after re-reading that sentence a few times did I realize the OP meant killing Android.

That said, I don't believe that to be the issue either. Death by a thousand cuts, maybe, but I seriously doubt closing off one app from the Android ecosystem is going to do any damage whatsoever. I think this is more about the acquisition of talent and nothing more.

Re: Apple acquires Dark Sky

#379

Post by philistine »

acidburnNSA wrote: post #99
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…

This was like the one Android app I paid for. Ugh. Also super annoyed.

You are exactly the reason why companies like Dark Sky can be bought by Apple: you have only ever paid for one Android app. That does not make a vibrant app economy.

Re: Apple acquires Dark Sky

#380

Post by skeletonjelly »

Barrin92 wrote: post #259
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…

It's literally bonkers to me how many people sell out. Is the VLC guy the only person with some integrity? Can we not be satisfied with the money we make from subscribers instead of selling everything including the kitchen sink to some corporate behemoth to swallow it up and kill every open service? The same thing is happening in the podcasting ecosystem right now. it's turning more and more into a walled garden.

I really take VLC for granted, now you've pointed this out!
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