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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

#141

Post by burkaman »

dmje wrote: post #112
burkaman wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> do I make any decisions based on what my weather app is telling me? No. Do you not ever go outside? I can't imagine not caring about the forecast, I make decisions based on it every single day.

Sure. All the time - I'm a runner, a walker, I have teen kids who like walking, we have a dog. But is any of this really changed by knowing it's going to rain? Nope. I stick my nose out on a morning - if it's cold, I put on a warm coat. If it's going to rain, I put on something rainproof. No need for an app. Or, sadly, a chart or a graph...

How do you know if it's going to rain? And how do you know what the temperature will be midday based on how it feels in the morning? I'm honestly just curious, these things are very variable in all the places I've lived. The presence or absence of clouds is not a great predictor of rain, and depending on the day it might be 20 degrees warmer in the afternoon or 0 degrees warmer.

Obviously I can imagine living without a weather app, but I genuinely can't imagine having one but not finding it useful. One of the things people loved about Dark Sky was not just knowing whether it is or isn't going to rain, but that it's going to rain in precisely 35 minutes, I have time to bike to the store instead of driving. I used this a lot and it was very accurate.

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

#142

Post by duanem »

alecfreudenberg wrote: post #138
screamingninja wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not to be sceptical, but here's my initial impression. Try the "privacy" link at the bottom of their homepage. https://flowx.io/privacy/ > Page not found (404) > Request Method: GET > Request URL: http://flowx.io/privacy/ > Raised by: wagtail.core.views.serve > You're seeing this error because you have DEBUG = True in your Django settings file. Change that to False, and Django will display a standard 404 page. They t…

Good eye! I added this to their bugs forum. I believe they are still a team of one, and have focused on app progress and efficiency at the expense of bugs & loose ends that would typically be handled in a larger organization with dedicated teams for that sort of thing. I bet they would Personally I find it charming. That is until I run into a security issue. I can't speak for Flowx though.

I've actually already looked into the DEBUG=True issue just now. Setting it to false causes an "Internal Server Issue".

So do I spend hours looking for a fix, look into replacing it with a static pages site (I'm thinking Hugo) or just go back to porting Flowx to Apple :-)

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

#143

Post by b555 »

2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: post #132
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…

I use the National Weather Service and added a shortcut to my home screen.

what's the page you are using to replicate dark sky's capabilities exactly?

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

#144

Post by insane_dreamer »

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…

Agreed. Very poor decision on Apple's part. They should have just rebranded it and kept as is.

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

#145

Post by a2dam »

dotancohen wrote: post #136
scarface74 wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes because out of the millions of app submissions that happen every year, you are likely to “be banned” for some arbitrary reason that is not spelled out. That must be why developing iOS Apps is so unpopular with developers…

For one thing, from what I understand (I don't develop mobile apps, and I don't own an Apple phone) Apple forbids applications that provide features already built into the phone. That's why even Firefox on iOS is just a skin over Safari. So if Apple Weather (or whatever they call the in-house weather app) comes with the phone, then your "same thing but different" app will not be made available in the Apple app store.

Weather is an entire category of apps on the App Store. You can develop any weather app you like.

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

#146

Post by creeble »

jwcooper wrote: post #83
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…

To make matters worse, Apple killed off the web version too, and didn't replace it with anything. The Dark Sky website was brilliant as well. It loaded quickly, wasn't covered in ads, and the UX was comparable to their app. I haven't really found anything to replace it with yet. I've defaulted to weather.gov, but the UX isn't really there yet (it's great for storms, or when you need to drill down into good data thoug…

Pretty happy with merrysky.net.

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

#148

Post by jwagenet »

jjulius wrote: post #88
bmitc wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And it wasn't just how it looked either. Dark Sky was a weather app that was actually accurate for what you wanted it for. It really frustrates me that Apple completely killed off the product. I don't know what their problem is, but it seems to me that it would have been no problem to allow the app to continue to exist as a standalone one while supposedly "integrating" it into whatever Apple's weather app is.

>I don't know what their problem is, but it seems to me that it would have been no problem to allow the app to continue to exist as a standalone one while supposedly "integrating" it into whatever Apple's weather app is. Shot in the dark - Apple wants you to live and die within Apple's ecosystem, using only Apple products. Doesn't matter if they own Dark Sky, it's not "Apple Weather", and that's what they want - iThi…

Counterpoint: the Beats and Shazam brands still exist.

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

#149

Post by schiffern »

0xfaded wrote: post #137
athenot wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They did the same for the weather on the Apple Watch. It used to show the next minimum temperature but sometime last year it changed to minimum within calendar day , which is just about useless.

To be fair it's only useless 50% of the time

If it's useless 50% of the time, it's untrustworthy 100% of the time.

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

#150

Post by Auracle »

jameshart wrote: post #40

Dark Sky was okay. As detailed here, it does a great job of centering on the actual user needs of weather app users. Unfortunately, it also demonstrated that which users you focus on matters a lot. Dark Sky is great at answering the weather questions of people who live in places where rain showers are short lasting; where temperatures range from ‘cool’ to ‘hot’; and where storms are infrequent, special events. Basica…

I disagree. I'm a photographer in Minnesota and getting notified when rain was going to start and stop was really handy on wedding days. I also had it set to let me know if the next day was going to be windy so I could possibly postpone shoots.
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