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WeatherKit

developer.apple.com

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Re: WeatherKit

#41

Post by threeseed »

cma wrote: post #34
Rygian wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What business advantage does it being to Apple to (just) stop those data leaks?

It is possible they don't get 30% cuts of any of that sale of info so want it out to avoid contagion ("but they dont pay 30% on X" spreads to "I don't want to pay 30% on Y and maybe we'll go to court over it"). Based on the emails that have come out from various trials, they want a 30% cut of everything, eventually including real world services mediated through the phone.

App Store is 14 years old. If Apple wanted to take a cut of literally everything that was facilitated using the phone e.g. Amazon or eBay they would've done it a long time ago.

The benefit to Apple is the same reason that Google invests in Project Zero.

Higher consumer confidence that a product is safe = higher engagement = higher revenue.

Re: WeatherKit

#42

Post by metadat »

bjtitus wrote: post #22
cube00 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was questioning why WeatherKit needs a "platform-specific Swift API" at all. If the general REST API in Swift is good then WeatherKit can be integrated into Swift apps as easily as any other service. If it's not easy then improvements to the general REST API could be considered.

There are all kinds of potential performance benefits to a native SDK. Cross app caching for such common data could be a huge boon for watchOS complications & Home/Lock Screen widgets, for instance. No idea if they are implementing those kinds of enhancements but it’s no surprise that a native SDK would be provided. Also, how would they implement the privacy preserving black box location implementation with a REST AP…

> Cross app caching for such common data could be a huge boon for watchOS complications..

What is your differentiation criteria between anticipating a "huge" boon versus a "regular" or "modest" boon"?

Re: WeatherKit

#44

Post by threeseed »

LewisVerstappen wrote: post #18
cube00 wrote: post #14

You've got to wonder why the focus isn't on providing a seamless general Rest API experience for all services rather then having specific Swift extensions for each service.

If you're building a site or something, why would you use WeatherKit's REST API rather than using something like OpenWeatherMap?

a) WeatherKit has the resources of Apple behind it so the API you would expect be more performance and available.

b) OpenWeatherMap limits not just by total API calls but by API calls per second.

Re: WeatherKit

#46

Post by threeseed »

cube00 wrote: post #39
mcphage wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I was questioning why WeatherKit needs a "platform-specific Swift API" at all So you can use it without having to deal with the low level detail of HTTP connections.

Low level detail of HTTP connections is already abstracted away in any general REST API.

Yes but many developers end up writing objects to hold the REST API data and methods to operate on it. And as the API changes you then to have a whole bunch of code you need to maintain and keep up to date.

Client library frees you from that.

Re: WeatherKit

#47

Post by nhf »

LewisVerstappen wrote: post #18
cube00 wrote: post #14

You've got to wonder why the focus isn't on providing a seamless general Rest API experience for all services rather then having specific Swift extensions for each service.

If you're building a site or something, why would you use WeatherKit's REST API rather than using something like OpenWeatherMap?

Dark Sky had a big focus on "hyperlocal" weather prediction prior to the Apple acquisition.

If you're a weather app, being able to tell your users "it will start raining in 35 minutes but pass in 55 minutes" is a huge value add over "80% chance of rain in the next hour". I found it to be quite accurate down to the 5-10 minute increment when I used to live in an area with frequent summer thunderstorms.

Re: WeatherKit

#48

Post by dieselgate »

knadh wrote: post #20

The Norwegian Meteorological Institute has an excellent free HTTP/JSON weather API that covers the globe. No signup required. https://developer.yr.no

Apple api - nope. Norwegian Meteorological Institute api - yup.

That’s mostly in jest though (sent from an iphone) but also because Apple bought darksky (which was my preferred weather api/source in the past) and I’d assume that’s a big part of/rolled into the weatherkit offerings now?

Re: WeatherKit

#49

Post by infinityio »

ramraj07 wrote: post #11
semicolon_storm wrote: post #5

Is there anything in this that DarkSky didn't provide years ago before it was acquired by Apple?

DarkSkys API offering wasn’t free for more than 10k requests per month so there’s that.

perhaps, but this api needs a $99/yr account, so isn't really free at all

Re: WeatherKit

#50

Post by aaronbrethorst »

dieselgate wrote: post #48
knadh wrote: post #20

The Norwegian Meteorological Institute has an excellent free HTTP/JSON weather API that covers the globe. No signup required. https://developer.yr.no

Apple api - nope. Norwegian Meteorological Institute api - yup. That’s mostly in jest though (sent from an iphone) but also because Apple bought darksky (which was my preferred weather api/source in the past) and I’d assume that’s a big part of/rolled into the weatherkit offerings now?

Check out the giant red warning at the top of this page: https://darksky.net/forecast/40.7127,-74.0059/us12/en
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