Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Eulogy for Dark Sky, a data visualization masterpiece (2023)

nightingaledvs.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 187 posts

Re: Eulogy for Dark Sky, a data visualization masterpiece (2023)

#41

Post by crazygringo »

gcanyon wrote: post #5

Dark Sky was a marvel, and when it first came out, its ability to say rain will start where you are in 2-3 minutes was a marvel. The information design argument is 100% valid, but I also marvel that, having bought the company, Apple's weather app still isn't as precise or accurate. I don't know whether Apple's privacy focus prevents them making the same precise predictions, or if there is some other reason they don't…

> Apple's weather app still isn't as precise or accurate

Is it not? The rainfall-per-minute over the next hour on iOS seems about the same accuracy as Dark Sky had -- I used Dark Sky for years. It wasn't perfect but it worked well enough, same as iOS did after. You can even scrub the precipitation map predictions and they look the same to me.

I know the Dark Sky prediction accuracy was greatly dependent on where you lived -- this is something that was widely discussed back in the day. If you've seen a drop in accuracy, did you simply move?

Re: Eulogy for Dark Sky, a data visualization masterpiece (2023)

#42

Post by xtiansimon »

I enjoyed this write-up on UI design and Visualization topic.

The table of user "context and situation" is a great document. You can easily envision authoring this table and scrolling to the right of your initial columns (A,B) to see further into the design process,

A) "When I hear about a storm, I want to prepare my loved ones, my property, etc.

B) Storm forecast ... : - Where is the storm right now and is it heading my direction?

[...]

N) _Show the storm front using _directional arrows_ ... (compact and replaces need for animation)_

The last section concludes in praise of the design and includes this: _"rigorously iterated on data visualization design". I wish we would have seen evidence of this, principally in the form of older screen shots of the design.

I think design iteration is the difference between mere good design and good products, and legendary product design.

Personally, I'd love to see a write up of my favorite whipping post, Transit App. Oh boy did that app go down hill, and with such great potential.

Re: Eulogy for Dark Sky, a data visualization masterpiece (2023)

#43

Post by crazygringo »

jasonmccay wrote: post #33
gcanyon wrote: post #5

Dark Sky was a marvel, and when it first came out, its ability to say rain will start where you are in 2-3 minutes was a marvel. The information design argument is 100% valid, but I also marvel that, having bought the company, Apple's weather app still isn't as precise or accurate. I don't know whether Apple's privacy focus prevents them making the same precise predictions, or if there is some other reason they don't…

Yes! The ability to be outside, pull out your phone, and get an almost-to-the-minute awareness of when it was going to rain felt magical, right out of Back to the Future 2. I used this countless times. So much of weather forecasting, at that time, was about trends and probabilities. DarkSky was about events, certainty, and action. It was truly ahead of anything else and forced a new standard.

> The ability to be outside, pull out your phone, and get an almost-to-the-minute awareness of when it was going to rain felt magical

But iOS has this now. It's the same thing. They integrated it from Dark Sky.

Re: Eulogy for Dark Sky, a data visualization masterpiece (2023)

#44

Post by asymmetric »

chrisweekly wrote: post #30

I miss Dark Sky for its impressive "local weather at a glance" accuracy and UX -- but Windy.app is pretty great too, with more details than DS ever had. They're maybe slightly complementary, given Windy.app is more like "prosumer" weather forecasting for nautical purposes, but I highly recommend it.

From my quick research, it seems like people in the sailing community actually prefer Windy.com to Windy.app. (yes, there's a very confusing name clash)

Re: Eulogy for Dark Sky, a data visualization masterpiece (2023)

#45

Post by 3333333331 »

crazygringo wrote: post #43
jasonmccay wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes! The ability to be outside, pull out your phone, and get an almost-to-the-minute awareness of when it was going to rain felt magical, right out of Back to the Future 2. I used this countless times. So much of weather forecasting, at that time, was about trends and probabilities. DarkSky was about events, certainty, and action. It was truly ahead of anything else and forced a new standard.

> The ability to be outside, pull out your phone, and get an almost-to-the-minute awareness of when it was going to rain felt magical But iOS has this now. It's the same thing. They integrated it from Dark Sky.

it doesn't work nearly as well. i'm not sure why, but the predictions are significantly worse than dark sky's were

Re: Eulogy for Dark Sky, a data visualization masterpiece (2023)

#46

Post by CraigRood »

chrisweekly wrote: post #35
tunapizza wrote: post #18

Fortunately someone recreated a clone at https://merrysky.net , which was featured [1] on HN some time ago. I've used it daily since. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34155191

Great rec! Thanks! See also Windy.app (a paid app w/ great dataviz, dx, and robust set of data sources).

Windy.app looks good visually, but once you start using it, the UX is all over the place. Always find it frustrating.

Re: Eulogy for Dark Sky, a data visualization masterpiece (2023)

#49

Post by tha_hnrain »

tunapizza wrote: post #18

Fortunately someone recreated a clone at https://merrysky.net , which was featured [1] on HN some time ago. I've used it daily since. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34155191

It renders the information totally different. How can it be a clone?

Re: Eulogy for Dark Sky, a data visualization masterpiece (2023)

#50

Post by postalcoder »

crazygringo wrote: post #41
gcanyon wrote: post #5

Dark Sky was a marvel, and when it first came out, its ability to say rain will start where you are in 2-3 minutes was a marvel. The information design argument is 100% valid, but I also marvel that, having bought the company, Apple's weather app still isn't as precise or accurate. I don't know whether Apple's privacy focus prevents them making the same precise predictions, or if there is some other reason they don't…

> Apple's weather app still isn't as precise or accurate Is it not? The rainfall-per-minute over the next hour on iOS seems about the same accuracy as Dark Sky had -- I used Dark Sky for years. It wasn't perfect but it worked well enough, same as iOS did after. You can even scrub the precipitation map predictions and they look the same to me. I know the Dark Sky prediction accuracy was greatly dependent on where you…

I used the Dark Sky app since it came out in 2012. I used to consistently get notifications about precipitation with Dark Sky, that were consistently accurate. The Apple weather application seems less motivated to send me notifications with any sort of regularity. I almost never get them now, even with fresh iOS installs. I haven't moved either.

And just anecdotally, Dark Sky was a delight to use. Apple Maps makes it a chore to extract the same utility from their app.

Post reply on HN