Apple acquires Dark Sky • Hacker News Board

Re: Apple acquires Dark Sky

#421

Post by nitrogen » Tue, Mar 31, 2020, 11:20 PM UTC

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.

Where can I buy a Primesense-based USB RGBZ camera these days?

Re: Apple acquires Dark Sky

#422

Post by the_pwner224 » Tue, Mar 31, 2020, 11:20 PM UTC

teddyh wrote: post #301

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.…

Wait, so HN normally filters the more odd Unicode characters, but does not filter codes from the Private Use Area?  Note: Since this is the Private Use area, the character you used does not display the same on every device. In my browswer, it displays as a box containing “F8FF”; if I copy it to a nearby terminal window, it shows up as “(t)”. According to the ConScript (…

For me it shows as the box in the browser, but when I search for f8ff in KCharSelect with FreeSans (GNU FreeFont) it shows as the Apple company logo.

The area also contains the Ubuntu icon as well as the Ubuntu word logo, and a bunch of assorted text symbols (numbers, fractions, accents, arrows, etc.).

Re: Apple acquires Dark Sky

#423

Post by acidburnNSA » Tue, Mar 31, 2020, 11:22 PM UTC

philistine wrote: post #379

acidburnNSA wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Another thing would help a more vibrant app economy would be if more teams made high-quality apps that I want that I can pay a few dollars a year in exchange for no advertisements or tracking.

Re: Apple acquires Dark Sky

#424

Post by stevetursi » Tue, Mar 31, 2020, 11:23 PM UTC

adambyrtek wrote: post #13

I'm sending an email to tell them how disappointed I feel as a long-time subscriber about them maliciously (since there is no other more generous explanation) shutting down the service for Android users: https://darksky.net/contact

I appreciate your effort, I really do, but you'll get a lot farther complaining on HN. Nobody is going to do anything about it here either, but at least here you'll have people that care what you think.

Re: Apple acquires Dark Sky

#425

Post by namesbc » Tue, Mar 31, 2020, 11:24 PM UTC

I use Dark Sky all the time. Such a shame to have it locked up behind Apple's walls

Re: Apple acquires Dark Sky

#426

Post by Razengan » Tue, Mar 31, 2020, 11:25 PM UTC

Regarding the people appearing to rage against Apple for dropping Android support, claiming how this move turns them away from Apple etc., that's how I've felt about Google since they took over YouTube and continued to gimp iPad support for years (like refusing to support the native picture-in-picture feature).

Re: Apple acquires Dark Sky

#427

Post by dmos62 » Tue, Mar 31, 2020, 11:26 PM UTC

jaywalk wrote: post #330

dmos62 wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can always come up with a ludicrous policy; it doesn't detract from the potential of regulation. Would you accept General Motors buying freeways and not allowing others' platforms on it? Competition must be regulated. Also, isn't the barrier between iOS and Android devices artificial? I don't see a veritable technical reason why the two platforms can't be compatible.

> Also, isn't the barrier between iOS and Android devices artificial? No, not even remotely. They are completely different operating systems.

Not processors though, right? OSX and Windows are distinct as well, but Web apps are portable. The main reason why there isn't an analogue native standard is that the economics incentivize walled gardens.

Re: Apple acquires Dark Sky

#428

Post by timzentu » Tue, Mar 31, 2020, 11:27 PM UTC

madeofpalk wrote: post #264

yepthatsreality wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

E^3 model[0], different parameters. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend,_and_extingu...

I mean in Epic's case, its really more like movie/tv/book deals, except with much more favourable terms to the creators.

You forgot to add with more restrictions, decreased customer satisfaction, upsetting early supporters, and an incomplete storefront that barely has enough online features to state it was built in the last 2 decades.

That is in the case of Epic not the OP.

Re: Apple acquires Dark Sky

#429

Post by rickyc091 » Tue, Mar 31, 2020, 11:30 PM UTC

realityking wrote: post #124

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…

I don't know. How's Dark Sky competing with Apple? I don't think they derive much, if any, revenue from the Weather app. More likely they're paying for the data.

So I exclusively use Dark Sky on my iPhone and watch. They could also be looking at the data and noticing that most people use Dark Sky as opposed to the default weather app.

Re: Apple acquires Dark Sky

#430

Post by viklove » Tue, Mar 31, 2020, 11:30 PM UTC

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.

But closed off and only accessible if you buy Apple devices. So this is yet another example of a private corporation taking a useful, accessible resource that people rely on, and gating it behind their own services so they can extract rent. God I love capitalism!