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

Post by NetMageSCW » Sat, Jan 10, 2026, 8:24 PM UTC

Noaidi wrote: post #31

Oh how I miss DarkSky, and accuracy in weather apps in general. I have no idea if it is AI or just enshitification, but wow, local temps are just always way off with Apple Weather and most other apps. This is important to me because I live in my van and I am talking about these apps being off 5 to 10 degrees. The only one that comes close is Accuweather but their interface is horrific. And forget about the widgets...…

Post by okrad » Sat, Jan 10, 2026, 8:39 PM UTC

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…

Post by natebc » Sat, Jan 10, 2026, 8:58 PM UTC

crazygringo wrote: post #94

postalcoder wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, this is what I meant. I don't know what the notification thresholds are, so I use the fact that I'm getting a notification at all as a proxy for accuracy.

Got it. Yeah, where I am it's usually pretty obvious that it's probably going to rain in the next hour or two, so I look at the chart to see exactly when. I don't rely on notifications. So for me the accuracy seems the same. But if you're basing it on notifications then I could totally see why you could have a different impression. I think -- and I might be wrong, since this is from over a decade ago -- that when I f…

Post by rootusrootus » Sat, Jan 10, 2026, 9:01 PM UTC

growt wrote: post #77

crazygringo wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Probably depends on where you are, but here in Europe I always joke that you should prepare for the exact opposite of what apple weather tells you. A lot of times I’m literary standing in the rain and Apple tells me the chance for rain is 0%

Post by Leftium » Sat, Jan 10, 2026, 9:21 PM UTC

the__alchemist wrote: post #39

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

Thx bro. I stumbled into this thread thinking it was about something else, and left with a new favorite weather bookmark. Nice things: - Loads fast - Nice vis of both today and week - Can mouse over the visualizations to get precise readouts.