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Apple acquires Dark Sky

blog.darksky.net

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Re: Apple acquires Dark Sky

#401

Post by kbutler »

simonh wrote: post #375
JeremyNT wrote: post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

https://bizfluent.com/about-6601606-monopoly-economics-.html

A monopoly exists when there is a single seller of a commodity. Copyrights and patents are government-granted monopolies.

A broader definition is that a monopolist is a provider that has pricing power - the ability to set prices.

Apple has a monopoly on the channel to deliver iOS apps. Anyone seeking to deliver an iOS app must accept Apple's terms, including Apple's cut of revenue.

Re: Apple acquires Dark Sky

#402

Post by enos_feedler »

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…

No product is going to come around and kill iMessage because it isn't zero sum. iMessage has a guaranteed priority slot in the OS because Apple owns it. As an Apple user, I prefer iMessage over every other messaging platform. It is just more fun and has better expression. Period. It's too bad I can't iMessage everyone, but hey, I can iMessage lots of people. Don't think that will _ever_ go away.

Re: Apple acquires Dark Sky

#403

Post by mey »

Since they are shutting down their API. Anyone have recommendations for a single paid API service that provides global weather coverage?

Re: Apple acquires Dark Sky

#404

Post by mattkrause »

neurobashing wrote: post #351
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…

> killing competition Apple believes it should make/provide the whole “widget”. If they think every phone should ship with a really good weather app, they’ll do one. If one comes on the market that they think is better, they’ll buy it and make it the new default. I mean they’re not in the weather app business. They aren’t competing against Dark Sky. What they’re competing against is Android, and if their phone comes…

Oddly, the iPad does not come with a calculator.

Re: Apple acquires Dark Sky

#405

Post by enos_feedler »

simonh wrote: post #381
tw04 wrote: post #370

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 f…

I think if Apple didn't care about messaging they would just kill their investment and let SMS and 3P apps do the job. They wouldn't just throw money away to make something they didn't care about.

Re: Apple acquires Dark Sky

#406

Post by vertis »

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.

I ended up having to use an Apple device temporarily after my previous phone died. While there are things I really enjoy about Apple, the lack of choice is a dealbreaker for me.

I can't buy a kindle book through the app on my device, because iBooks.

Added: Ended up back on an Android device pretty quickly.

Re: Apple acquires Dark Sky

#407

Post by dopamean »

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'm with you 100% here. I'm very, very disappointed.

Re: Apple acquires Dark Sky

#408

Post by vertis »

tw04 wrote: post #389
cageface wrote: post #376

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Privacy is an interesting argument. Apple theoretically respects privacy more, but you have to take their word. You don't have control of your device.

Android phones on the other hand at least have the option of installing a variant that is more privacy focused, such as Copperhead[1].

I can install F-Droid and follow some of the other recommendations on the Free Software Foundation website to "Free my Android"[2]. All without having to jailbreak my device.

Now, granted this is an expert action, but it allows people that care about it to accomplish it. Do you lose a lot of functionality? Sure, but all Security and Privacy is about trade-offs.

[1]: https://copperhead.co/android/ [2]: https://fsfe.org/campaigns/android/liberate.en.html

Re: Apple acquires Dark Sky

#409

Post by uoaei »

txcwpalpha wrote: post #200
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…

Dark Sky (formerly forecast.io)'s entire point was that they, unlike most weather apps, aren't just a prettified version of publicly available weather data. Dark Sky's selling point was that they also used crowdsourced data, including user reports of rain and IIRC data from app user's sensors in their phones, to predict "hyperlocal" weather. I use Dark Sky and it is typically much much more accurate than other weathe…

On the other hand, if they integrate it into iOS's default weather app, that would open up a whole trove of walking sensors. And potentially make it the most accurate forecasting service by far.

Re: Apple acquires Dark Sky

#410

Post by mcjiggerlog »

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

Another great option is Klara - https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.androworks...

Great information density, clean interface and has by the far the best widget of any weather app I've seen. It manages to display so much information with graphs without being visually overloaded.

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