WeatherKit • Hacker News Board

Re: WeatherKit

#131

Post by simondotau » Sun, Jul 03, 2022, 12:42 PM UTC

ibeckermayer wrote: post #122

eproxus wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not both? If privacy is another thing that sells, then it’s a win-win for them. Especially since no-one else seems to care about it.

The point is that they don’t actually care because they’re not offering true privacy. Real privacy means my data is mine, and I decide individually which people or groups get access, including Apple. Apples’ “privacy” is that they retain monopoly control over my data. Basically they stiff arm the competition (Facebook, Google, Amazon, etc) and get to profit exclusively by spying on me.

> Apples’ “privacy” is that they retain monopoly control over my data.

That's a strange way to describe the situation where Apple is not allowing third parties to share your private data without your permission. Apple is doing exactly what you wanted in your first paragraph, which is to let you decide who gets access to your private data. If you only give it to Apple, that's YOU deciding to voluntarily grant Apple that monopoly. It's only a "monopoly" if YOU choose it to be.

If you want to download the Facebook app from the App Store and voluntarily give your private data to Facebook, Apple isn't standing in your way. Monopoly? Seriously, I have no idea what that complaint could possibly be based on.

> and get to profit exclusively by spying on me.

I'll set aside the weird claim that Apple is "spying" on you, as though you didn't know Apple is involved in the functioning of your device. Really I'm confused why exclusivity would be a grievance. You think it'd be better if Apple were giving your data to other companies so more companies could spy on you?

Re: WeatherKit

#132

Post by ozaiworld » Sun, Jul 03, 2022, 1:01 PM UTC

naiv wrote: post #116

ozaiworld wrote: post #110

Glad to see this released publicly! I used it internally last year, and it was frustrating but useful (mostly relating to not having access rights and quickly changing versions).

Can you share some experiences like response times etc? Did you use Swift or the Rest API?

I used the Swift API. Response times were generally very fast, but it was also not a production build with a beta iOS version.

Re: WeatherKit

#133

Post by cosmiccatnap » Sun, Jul 03, 2022, 1:27 PM UTC

It's interesting to me how people think that just because it's apple it's not still skimming your data.

Saying something is "privacy first" is cheap and easy. Proving it is another and we have enough evidence to support that they are not perfect on this front.

For my money, I'll just buy a porch thermometer and look at clouds...

Re: WeatherKit

#134

Post by lkxijlewlf » Sun, Jul 03, 2022, 1:29 PM UTC

xenadu02 wrote: post #96

PostOnce wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

New Zealanders pay taxes for a weather agency and a separate climate agency, neither of which provides weather local for most farms (one farm client of my agtech automation business is an hour from town; the weather report only applies to town). Additionally, the weather service is a "state owned enterprise" expected to turn a profit. So everyone who needs farm weather uses yr.no After covid, I'm going to go talk to…

I'm somewhat surprised. The National Weather Service in the US has a website: https://weather.gov . There is a radar map https://radar.weather.gov/ and forecasts https://digital.weather.gov . They also publish the data for free, such as map layers/radar https://opengeo.ncep.noaa.gov/geoserver/www/index.html or the weather forecasts https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/products/weather-climate-models/na... In the past The Weathe…

I believe it was Accuweather (sic) and Rick Santorum.

Re: WeatherKit

#135

Post by lh7777 » Sun, Jul 03, 2022, 1:41 PM UTC

emsy wrote: post #93

Apple could use this to build a weather app for the ipad. Calculator kit when?

I don't know about Calculator, but Weather for iPad is coming: https://www.theverge.com/2022/6/6/23156804/apple-weather-app...

Re: WeatherKit

#136

Post by ezfe » Sun, Jul 03, 2022, 2:25 PM UTC

dodgerdan wrote: post #72

twicetwice wrote: post #2

Looks like this is what they did with DarkSky after they acquired it. It looks awesome. It's a shame it's only available to Apple developers and users Edit: my bad for skimming too fast, I'm glad there's a REST API, that's unexpected and cool!

And idea why the Apple Weather app still has the “The Weather Channel” logo on it? I hope they continue to support Darksky, at least until the Apple Weather app is on par with it.

Because iOS 15 doesn't have WeatherKit in it yet. iOS 16 removes the Weather Channel logo.

Re: WeatherKit

#137

Post by ezfe » Sun, Jul 03, 2022, 2:26 PM UTC

dan1234 wrote: post #114

suction wrote: post #89

What data is Apple using in Central Europe? Because all weather apps only using data from US providers only are hilariously wrong.

Not sure for Central Europe, but for the UK, their app has logos for the Weather Channel, along with BreezoMeter for air quality info. Doesn't feel as accurate as the Met Office's app, but not too bad (tends to over predict chance of rain).

Are you in iOS 16 or iOS 15 - in iOS 15 the Weather Channel logo shows in all countries.

Re: WeatherKit

#138

Post by ImHereToVote » Sun, Jul 03, 2022, 2:27 PM UTC

leobg wrote: post #87

harha wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quite interesting reasoning given in how many places the state intervenes and how high taxes are. Though then again not that surprising that they manage to publicly fund something and then ruin it, leaving the taxpayer in the worst condition. I believe there’s even no official source of laws online in Germany decades after the internet has made it cheap and easy to provide access to information.

Good point. It’s even worse with court decisions. Every lawyer needs access to them. But there is no free central source for them. Instead, the government has made a deal with a private company, which itself is a spin-off of a former government entity, which receives court decisions directly from the courts. And they then sell it as a membership to lawyers and professionals, with the profits going to that private com…

I think the alternative would be much worse. It's perfectly fine as it is.

The person with the most freedom of speech in their bank accounts should be able to have the most say in how the government runs. Because they have most freedom of speech at stake.

Re: WeatherKit

#139

Post by [deleted] » Sun, Jul 03, 2022, 2:30 PM UTC

robsws wrote: post #92

I don't really know Swift, but does the following line from that site make any sense? "And with Swift concurrency, it’s easy to request weather data with just a few lines of code."

[deleted]

Re: WeatherKit

#140

Post by lancesells » Sun, Jul 03, 2022, 2:37 PM UTC

dzek69 wrote: post #59

dieselgate wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

I loved dark sky, I'm using it for my own smart home app, but I should move away from it much earlier, because it just became so inaccurate I can no longer rely on it. I don't know if this is for my region only, or a country (Poland) or whatever, but if a forecast says it will rain for 7 days straight and there is no rain, but the rain falled immediately after forecast stopped showing any rain then it's worthless to…

I'm in NYC and I think Dark Sky has become more innaccurate. Don't know if it's truly gotten worse than before but there are plenty of times it's wrong on if it's going to rain. The funniest thing is it seems Siri still uses the Weather Channel data because my Dark Sky app is usually a bit different than if I ask Siri what the weather is like.