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Apple acquires Dark Sky

blog.darksky.net

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Re: Apple acquires Dark Sky

#381

Post by simonh »

tw04 wrote: post #370
enos_feedler wrote: post #349

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 Ana…

I think the mistake you’re making is thinking Apple cares about messaging. They don’t. They care about the iOS platform. Messages gives them a competitive advantage in that sector. Yes a competing messaging service might surpass it, in fact this has already happened in China with WeChat. This goes some way to level of the playing field with Android over there.

But putting Messages on Android would level the playing field as well. It might give them the dominant messaging platform, at least outside a China, but so what? There’s no reason for them to care about that. They’re not Facebook.

Re: Apple acquires Dark Sky

#382

Post by divbzero »

abrowne wrote: post #164
minimaxir wrote: post #20

Shutting down Android functionality is interesting since Apple did not do that for the Shazam acquisition in 2018 (the PR for that doesn't mention Android at all: https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2018/09/apple-acquires-shazam... ) In fact, Apple has released more apps for Android such as Apple Music in recent years.

The difference I think is the scale and name recognition of Shazam and wanting to get new customers via Apple Music. They can even say something like "with an iPhone you don't even need an app for Shazam, you can just use Siri", but that works better if non-Apple users know what Shazam is. while this they will probably retire to be used as the nameless backend to the default weather app.

Still, killing DarkSky on Android seems to offer little gain while hurting DarkSky supporters and generating ill will. I hope Apple and DarkSky can reconsider this decision.

Re: Apple acquires Dark Sky

#383

Post by zyngaro »

thinkloop wrote: post #224
Someone wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For those who wonder: it’s not a neologism. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defenestrations_of_Prague : The Defenestrations of Prague (Czech: Pražská defenestrace, German: Prager Fenstersturz, Latin: Defenestratio Pragensis) were three incidents in the history of Bohemia in which multiple people were defenestrated (thrown out of a window). The origin of the word "defenestrate" ("out of the window") is believed to come…

> This drove Armstrong to suicide by defenestration For those who are extra slow like me: he killed himself by jumping out of a window.

Lol in French defenestration is literally death by jumping out of a window.

Re: Apple acquires Dark Sky

#384

Post by latexr »

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.

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

Perhaps more. It’s a matter of comparing all users of Dark Sky, including via the API and on Android, against the user base of iOS.

And perhaps they’ll be able to use the technology in other countries, bringing in more users than Dark Sky ever could.

Re: Apple acquires Dark Sky

#385

Post by duanem »

zachberger wrote: post #372
duanem wrote: post #354

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

No, there are no notification. I plan to add a notification editor one day where you can configure any notification you want.

That said, the to-do list is super long so it might be a while before this feature is done. I depends on demand.

That said, Rainviewer is working on predicting rain from radar images for up to 2 hours ahead. Check them out and ask when this feature might appear. They might have beta testing and your situation sounds like a good test case.

Re: Apple acquires Dark Sky

#386

Post by starpilot »

reaperducer wrote: post #284
minimalist wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure, NWS does a good job of interpolating for regions without a weather station, even taking into account coastal effects and elevation. In my experience (in a rural, montane environment) it works pretty well if you specify your coordinates, not just the zipcode. Have there any been any comparisons of the commercial services to NWS? That would be an interesting casual study. Edit: There are some additional i…

I'm not sure I am. Spend some time in the desert southwest, particularly on indian reservations. You'll find that NWS temperatures are regularly off by 10-20°. But that's still better than Weather Underground, which can be off by as much as 50°. One thing I will give the NWS credit for is the wind forecasts. Those things are spot-on at least 90% of the time. I've lived in 15 cities in a dozen states, and what I've no…

Larger cities are built on plains because they are more accessible. Easier to forecast without crazy mountains in the way.

Re: Apple acquires Dark Sky

#387

Post by MivLives »

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.

I had just switched in late last year after Weather Underground had gotten worse.

Now I have to find another, or just hope that something is better then Weatherbug or whatever the top rated weather app is.

Re: Apple acquires Dark Sky

#388

Post by Spooky23 »

ceejayoz wrote: post #325
PaulHoule wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who needs the weather channel when we have the national weather service publishing forecasts on a 1km x 1km grid? Is the value of the weather channel that investors expect the national weather service to be abolished?

> Is the value of the weather channel that investors expect the national weather service to be abolished? https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2019/11/25/weather-i... "In 2017, Trump nominated Barry Myers, the former CEO of AccuWeather, a company that has advocated for the privatization of large parts of the National Weather Service, to lead NOAA. However, his nomination stalled, in part because of conflict-of-int…

Myers doesn’t want to abolish the weather service, he wants to limit who gets the data they collect.

It certainly wouldn’t be profitable for Accuweather to have to do things like gather weather data and have supercomputers to analyze.

Re: Apple acquires Dark Sky

#389

Post by tw04 »

cageface wrote: post #376
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.

So you move from apples to googles? At least Apple pretends to care about privacy.

Re: Apple acquires Dark Sky

#390

Post by starpilot »

beoberha wrote: post #356
girzel wrote: post #347

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is exactly what I found it didn't work for. I live in Seattle, and basically gave up on it (with today's news, I'll uninstall it from my Android phone). I could look out the window at steady rain, and Dark Sky would still be telling me it was going to be clear all day. Like that more often than not.

I live in Seattle now but used to live in Ohio. I agree that the minute by minute is pretty much useless in Seattle but it was incredibly accurate in Ohio. I have numerous stories where I was able to get to shelter or remain sheltered minutes before a sprinkle turned into a downpour. I know nothing about weather, but I have to assume the weather patterns in Seattle are just very difficult to predict or analyze at suc…

The weird thing I know someone who swears by Dark Sky in Seattle, while for me it's been pretty inaccurate.

I think these personal takes are plagued with confirmation bias.

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