Apple, Google, Amazon etc acquires companies all the time, but this one seems to be a little bit special. For the layman like myself, I don't really understand it. Can someone give a quick explanation?
Apple acquires Dark Sky
521–530 of 594 posts
Re: Apple acquires Dark Sky
#522Apple, Google, Amazon etc acquires companies all the time, but this one seems to be a little bit special. For the layman like myself, I don't really understand it. Can someone give a quick explanation?
My guess would be to integrate it into their own weather app. Darksky has better forecasting than Apple's own weather app, which I believe is powered by the weather network.
Re: Apple acquires Dark Sky
#523Earlier quoted context omitted.
>Yes but that's inline with what you'd expect Apple to do though. I'd argue the exact opposite. They keep pronouncing they're now a services company. If that's TRULY their go-forward model, they should be selling services to the broadest possible audience. Shutting it down to other audiences tells me they're still a hardware company that can't see past their walled garden. If anyone at Apple is listening, I'll say it…
What’s the purpose of “owning messaging?” All of the popular messaging companies make money via advertising. Messaging needs a network effect. The other alternative besides advertising is charging customers. Can you point to one successful platform that has a network effect and charges customers?
Microsoft Windows is a successful platform that has a network effect and charges customers.
Microsoft Office (or maybe just Excel?) may qualify too, if VBScript is sufficient to label it as a platform.
Re: Apple acquires Dark Sky
#524Earlier 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.
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.
It's possible to strip drm from kindle and other books to avoid getting tied to a platform by prior purchases.
Re: Apple acquires Dark Sky
#525Sigh. 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…
>A large economic downturn means a lot of small, independent companies will struggle to survive. Being swallowed by a megacorp might be one of the few ways to keep something alive. this is going to huge oil company consolidation now
This isn't because of the economic downturn. This is because just before COVID-19, Saudia Arabia and Russia began an oil supply war.
It's a pissing match between MBS and Putin. MBS/SA wanted to increase production which lowers prices, Putin wanted to maintain current levels because lower prices let US shale oil back into the market.
Prices dropped to the mid USD 30s per barrel.
Then COVID-19 hit.
The result is that oil has dropped now to mid USD20s/barrel.
US shale oil producers are uneconomical below USD40/barrel.
Re: Apple acquires Dark Sky
#526Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
No. Almost every medium and large city in the United States was built because of its access to water and shipping. New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Houston, PORTland, Boston, Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Charleston, and on and on and on.
Even smaller cities like Minneapolis, Buffalo, Sioux Falls, Albany, and hundreds more are located where they are because waterfalls and rapids made them the farthest extent of water travel before rapids or waterfalls or other hazards made the route too difficult.
Re: Apple acquires Dark Sky
#527Earlier quoted context omitted.
By shenanigans, do you perhaps mean the rigorous testing regime applied to a device which will literally be putting the air in your lungs while you're unconscious?? I for one am super happy that people with this attitude have been totally unable to penetrate the medical devices field!
You might want to read about the sort of malfeasance that has put us in this situation: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/29/business/coronavirus-us-v... TLDR: A $3000 ventilator was “on schedule to file for market approval in September 2013” and then Covidien bought out the competition to prevent it coming to fruition.
Covidien at the time already sold a $5000 portable ventilator, which was never rejected by the FDA. The prospective Newport ventilator was rejected for neonatal use, which was a requirement of their BARDA contract.
Re: Apple acquires Dark Sky
#528Earlier quoted context omitted.
Restating a comment from about a year ago[0]: If you are in the United States, nothing beats getting the forecast straight from the horses mouth (NWS that is). Some companies are notorious for producing 30+ day forecasts, which can't have any meaningful levels of skill. NOAA/NWS should just create their own mobile application. I use Wx[1], which parses NWS data directly and can be found on f-droid[2] and g---le play.…
Why do you feel the need to censor the words Google and React?
Because big corp can die in a grease fire or pay us for our analysis.
Re: Apple acquires Dark Sky
#529>We’re thrilled to have the opportunity to reach far more people, with far more impact, than we ever could alone.
A few sentences later:
>The app will no longer be available for download [on android]
Can anyone recommend a good alternative?
Re: Apple acquires Dark Sky
#530Sigh. 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…
Have you found good alternatives? I'm looking at meteoblue at the moment.