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Apple acquires Dark Sky

blog.darksky.net

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Re: Apple acquires Dark Sky

#411

Post by joeblau »

LeoPanthera wrote: post #346
joeblau wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If  shuts down the 1M+ (less than 5M) Google[1] accounts and then this weather app becomes the default system backing Siri, there will be a lot more users than the Google Play store users Dark Sky is losing. Right now, Apple's weather is backed by Yahoo! so my guess is that Yahoo! is going away and all 1 billion  devices will now be using Dark Sky. [1] - https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=net.darksky.da.…

The Apple Weather app and Siri currently get data from The Weather Channel, not Yahoo. (At least, in the USA.)

Ah yes, you are correct! the iPhone weather app data is from Yahoo.

Re: Apple acquires Dark Sky

#412

Post by summerlight »

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…

Probably this is for aqui-hire + customer lock-in, so I doubt if we'll see any material improvements on the Apple weather app anytime soon.

Re: Apple acquires Dark Sky

#413

Post by stevetursi »

logjammin wrote: post #335
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…

Just came here to say "fuck". I'm so let down. Can't have nice things, I guess.

I was about to do the same. Frankly, I'm pissed.

Re: Apple acquires Dark Sky

#414

Post by joeblau »

dguo wrote: post #234
joeblau wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If  shuts down the 1M+ (less than 5M) Google[1] accounts and then this weather app becomes the default system backing Siri, there will be a lot more users than the Google Play store users Dark Sky is losing. Right now, Apple's weather is backed by Yahoo! so my guess is that Yahoo! is going away and all 1 billion  devices will now be using Dark Sky. [1] - https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=net.darksky.da.…

That's fair. My counterpoint would be that Apple could have become a customer of the Dark Sky API, achieving essentially the same result without Dark Sky having to kill off platforms. But sure, at that point, it probably makes sense for Apple to just buy the company to make sure that the data supply chain is within their control. I am just a little bitter to lose the service personally.

Yeah that is understandable. The data is still going to be surfaced via Duck Duck Go, but that's not the same as having an integrated experience.

Re: Apple acquires Dark Sky

#415

Post by seppin »

uoaei wrote: post #409
txcwpalpha wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

More data for the big company to store on you.

Damn it.

Re: Apple acquires Dark Sky

#416

Post by starpilot »

crazygringo wrote: post #400
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.

That's bizarre but actually can't be Dark Sky's fault. Switch to radar view in the app and it will show you the exact geographical distribution of rain in your city right now. This comes from national weather data. If that's inaccurate then something is wrong with the government data. Or maybe Seattle rain is somehow much patchier at a finer level than government data is able to resolve? FWIW in New York City its ass…

Radar data is hugely noisy and it can be difficult to suss out what is cloud cover with no precipitation, or what is precipitation, plus filtering out biomass and dust. All of these show up as radar returns. There can be shadowing. Dark Sky does its own pre-processing/denoising of radar and so that can lead to different results from NOAA.

Re: Apple acquires Dark Sky

#417

Post by srhngpr »

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've been using Overdrop [0] for a few months now. Has great widgets and can select from a few different sources for the weather data too.

[0] https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=widget.dd.com....

Re: Apple acquires Dark Sky

#418

Post by stevetursi »

Apple making this exclusive to apple makes me less likely to switch to apple products. No app, including something as beloved as dark sky, is meaningful enough to get me to switch platforms, but if I had any good will towards apple it just went out the fucking window.

Re: Apple acquires Dark Sky

#419

Post by dewey »

sneak wrote: post #395
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…

> they deserve a lot of credit for not selling user data How can you say that on a day that they sold all the user data?

How do you know they did? You can buy a company without handing over any sensitive user data. I doubt Apple needs the data if it’s more of an aquihire.

Re: Apple acquires Dark Sky

#420

Post by dntbnmpls »

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.

Yep, took me a while to find dark sky after weather underground. Now I'll have to find another.

I'm starting to get real tired of the "get enough users then sell out" model. Wish more people would follow the craiglist model.

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