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A eulogy for Dark Sky, a data visualization masterpiece

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Re: A eulogy for Dark Sky, a data visualization masterpiece

#41

Post by nonethewiser »

jwestbury wrote: post #14
strict9 wrote: post #8

It was a masterpiece. Apple deleting Dark Sky something I will never forgive them for. Maybe not enough to make me switch phones, but enough to make me look elsewhere when needing peripheral items. The statement that Dark Sky features were incorporated into the native weather app was an insult. I know I sound dramatic talking about a weather app, but it was in a class of its own and nothing else is remotely comparabl…

Can I just piggyback on this to shit on the iOS Weather app for a moment? Whoever designed it doesn't understand the concept of daily max/min temperatures, and the daily low presented in the app is the lowest during that calendar day, rather than the forecast overnight low following the day. It drives me absolutely mad, because I can never reliably determine how cold it will get overnight without going into the hourl…

I’m confused why the daily minimum would include times outside the day. That doesn’t seem like a daily minimum by definition. The way Apple does it is exactly how I assumed it would work.

Is the alternative you described standard?

Re: A eulogy for Dark Sky, a data visualization masterpiece

#42

Post by doctoboggan »

phailhaus wrote: post #34
doctoboggan wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If rain is forecast in the next hour they put the minute by minute graph at the top front and center in the iOS weather app.

Not good enough. I'm going to be out for the whole day: do I need an umbrella? I want to know that immediately. It's such basic information that it needs to be always at hand.

The app also tells you that. For example at the top of the app now I see a message “Rainy conditions expected around 3pm”

Re: A eulogy for Dark Sky, a data visualization masterpiece

#43

Post by SkyPuncher »

jwestbury wrote: post #14
strict9 wrote: post #8

It was a masterpiece. Apple deleting Dark Sky something I will never forgive them for. Maybe not enough to make me switch phones, but enough to make me look elsewhere when needing peripheral items. The statement that Dark Sky features were incorporated into the native weather app was an insult. I know I sound dramatic talking about a weather app, but it was in a class of its own and nothing else is remotely comparabl…

Can I just piggyback on this to shit on the iOS Weather app for a moment? Whoever designed it doesn't understand the concept of daily max/min temperatures, and the daily low presented in the app is the lowest during that calendar day, rather than the forecast overnight low following the day. It drives me absolutely mad, because I can never reliably determine how cold it will get overnight without going into the hourl…

Oh, that drives me insane. It makes it absolutely useless for figuring out how to dress for outdoor activities.

Re: A eulogy for Dark Sky, a data visualization masterpiece

#44

Post by TheJoeMan »

nonethewiser wrote: post #41
jwestbury wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can I just piggyback on this to shit on the iOS Weather app for a moment? Whoever designed it doesn't understand the concept of daily max/min temperatures, and the daily low presented in the app is the lowest during that calendar day, rather than the forecast overnight low following the day. It drives me absolutely mad, because I can never reliably determine how cold it will get overnight without going into the hourl…

I’m confused why the daily minimum would include times outside the day. That doesn’t seem like a daily minimum by definition. The way Apple does it is exactly how I assumed it would work. Is the alternative you described standard?

Say it says “32F low for saturday”. Is it going to freeze friday night at 1am (aka sat morning) or sat at 11pm?

Re: A eulogy for Dark Sky, a data visualization masterpiece

#45

Post by dczot »

egypturnash wrote: post #9

I have moved from Dark Sky to Weather Strip: https://www.weatherstrip.app It does a really nice job of showing me most of what Dark Sky showed, in a similarly easy-to-glance-at format once I spent a little time learning to read its graphs. I think Carrot Weather has a lot of graphs directly ripped off from Dark Sky but the constant attempts to upsell me to a subscription plan while I was playing with it really turned…

Nice thanks for the iOS rec. I've been a big fan of FlowX (https://flowx.io/) on Android which has had a similar graph/visualization with the addition of also having a radar view.

Re: A eulogy for Dark Sky, a data visualization masterpiece

#46

Post by prophesi »

nonethewiser wrote: post #41
jwestbury wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can I just piggyback on this to shit on the iOS Weather app for a moment? Whoever designed it doesn't understand the concept of daily max/min temperatures, and the daily low presented in the app is the lowest during that calendar day, rather than the forecast overnight low following the day. It drives me absolutely mad, because I can never reliably determine how cold it will get overnight without going into the hourl…

I’m confused why the daily minimum would include times outside the day. That doesn’t seem like a daily minimum by definition. The way Apple does it is exactly how I assumed it would work. Is the alternative you described standard?

Yep, Dark Sky's way is standard. Weather.com and the like show the next low. Today in my area is actually the perfect example, currently ~40f. It shows a high of ~55f and a low of ~53f.

Apple's weather app shows a low of ~40f.

Re: A eulogy for Dark Sky, a data visualization masterpiece

#47

Post by jp191919 »

egypturnash wrote: post #9

I have moved from Dark Sky to Weather Strip: https://www.weatherstrip.app It does a really nice job of showing me most of what Dark Sky showed, in a similarly easy-to-glance-at format once I spent a little time learning to read its graphs. I think Carrot Weather has a lot of graphs directly ripped off from Dark Sky but the constant attempts to upsell me to a subscription plan while I was playing with it really turned…

This looks like a nice option, but no android app

Re: A eulogy for Dark Sky, a data visualization masterpiece

#48

Post by causality0 »

I can't help but remember back when they got purchased and we Android users lamented that we were losing it and Apple was going to ruin it, and many of the responses were "Haha, you should've bought an iPhone, Dark Sky is going to be great with Apple's financial support!"

Re: A eulogy for Dark Sky, a data visualization masterpiece

#49

Post by cryptoz »

withinboredom wrote: post #35
cryptoz wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but, significant work was done at an academic level between 2011 and 2017, researchers at universities, grad student projects, etc, that resulted in usable data being extracted. I worked on this problem for ~10 years off and on. It is absolutely doable. Especially since you don't actually _need_ raw pressure data to be useful. Pressure rate of change over time is still useful and produces improved accuracy in so…

Huh. This is why I love HN. I didn’t know about that but looking up these papers to see if this approach would be useful to some other stuff I’m working on with similar-ish noise problems that conventional algorithms aren’t working for.

Best of luck! Here's one paper I referenced for a starting point, may be the most useful one (not sure..been a while..) https://journals.ametsoc.org/view/journals/atot/35/3/jtech-d...

Re: A eulogy for Dark Sky, a data visualization masterpiece

#50

Post by ajmurmann »

adql wrote: post #36
strict9 wrote: post #8

It was a masterpiece. Apple deleting Dark Sky something I will never forgive them for. Maybe not enough to make me switch phones, but enough to make me look elsewhere when needing peripheral items. The statement that Dark Sky features were incorporated into the native weather app was an insult. I know I sound dramatic talking about a weather app, but it was in a class of its own and nothing else is remotely comparabl…

> It was a masterpiece. Apple deleting Dark Sky something I will never forgive them for. Maybe not enough to make me switch phones, but enough to make me look elsewhere when needing peripheral items. "I hate them so I will only give them a tiny bit less money" is why it will never change

I think a big problem is that there are few choices because of constant consolidation. This is reflected in two ways:

a) every big tech company tries to do a ton of stuff. I'm not happy with this weather app. Usually the market would reflect this by me buying a different weather app. However, Apple isn't in the weather app market, they are in the phone and computer market. If I buy a different weather app, Apple actually gets more money! Buying a different phone because Apple made the decision to kill my favorite weather app is now muddled in with so many other factors and Apple and their shareholders are unlikely to link a drop in phone sales to killing the weather app. Now I also need to look at the very few real competitors and probably have issues with them as well. It's a mess because they all do too much. Maybe I don't want Android devices because Google built Bart without disclosing training sources. What a mess!

b) someone builds something nice and it just gets killed by an incumbant. No real competition between most startups and incumbants. It's more like a buyer/seller relation

I'd love to see this all fixed in my utopia by prohibiting acquisitions and instead force companies to fight for customers. But I'm sure that would need to happen globally to avoid putting our own companies at a disadvantage where they'll just get their lunch stolen by companies that aren't limited like that. I'm also sure this solution has other side effects I cannot think of.

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