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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

#211

Post by sizzle »

nonethewiser wrote: post #190
eli wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's very rare that I need to know about what the weather was like a few hours in the past.

Then don’t look at past temps. The daily low is the lowest temp of the day. It could very well be in the future. But it’s certainly not in the next day, and it’s not from a specific hour. If you want to see tomorrow mornings temps look at tomorrow’s hourly temps. Do you expect the daily high to work the same? So maybe at 4pm it’s down from the daily high and now it shows today’s high is actually some temp around 3pm…

absolutely the radio and local news television forecasts have always had daily high and low boundaries, not sure what is up with these people’s atypical mental models? They must not have listened to the news on the radio or on television growing up? Why should an app create a UI design pattern that goes against the majority of people’s mental models.

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

#212

Post by outworlder »

Dark Sky was eerily accurate, sometimes to the minute. That was great because my dog hates rain. I've often dropped what I was doing immediately and get out earlier because of a Dark Sky notification. If it told me I had 25 minutes before rain started, I really had 25 minutes.

I've noticed that it got progressively less accurate the closer it got of the shutdown by Apple.

The iOS weather app is pretty inaccurate and borderline useless in comparison. It will tell me it's raining when it's not and vice/versa. Time predictions are so out of whack that they might as well not be there; they also get revised all the time.

I understand that weather can be finnicky and predictions are just that. But Dark Sky did it correctly and Apple does not. I wonder what was the point of acquiring them, if their UI is inferior (although pretty!) and so are the predictions.

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

#213

Post by duanem »

clawlor wrote: post #171
duanem wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 :-)

> Never deploy a site into production with DEBUG turned on. - https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/4.1/ref/settings/#debug Setting DEBUG = False doesn't cause in Internal Server Issue. The issue is caused by something else, having DEBUG = True just means Django will return a detailed error page, instead of a generic 500 error page. IIRC, DEBUG = True also used to leak memory, which doesn't matter so much for local devel…

I changed DEBUG = False and I get an "Internal Server Error" - you can check it now while I have a quick go at finding the cause.

I want to try static page generators (Hugo) instead since they are easier to maintain. So it's a prioritization question - do I spend time fixing this bug or spend the time on migrating.

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

#214

Post by ChrisArchitect »

uneekname wrote: post #2

Oh man I miss Dark Sky. I have yet to find a weather app as good. briefsky[0] was recently posted on here and I think I'll try using it for a while. Also of note is Pirate Weather[1], a weather API in the same style as Dark Sky. [0] https://briefsky.app/ [1] https://pirateweather.net

Merry Sky (https://merrysky.net/) has replaced Dark Sky for me, a homescreen link to the website and it's doing a good job for at a glance weather and 'feels like' lookups.

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

#215

Post by eitally »

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #95

I'm not a phone user, so the presentation of weather for me always tends to look fairly different than anything you'd "typically" see on a phone. That said, I have a hard time imagining how I could improve on the data density, clarity and depth of this 10 day forecast, customized by me, from wunderground.com https://imgur.com/5PIiB1h.png You can see clearly: * 24hr temperature cycles * cloud cover vs. sun * wind spee…

This looks similar to what I designed for myself using Meteogram[1].

[1] https://meteograms.com/ (I use the Android app)

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

#216

Post by simon_weber »

uneekname wrote: post #2

Oh man I miss Dark Sky. I have yet to find a weather app as good. briefsky[0] was recently posted on here and I think I'll try using it for a while. Also of note is Pirate Weather[1], a weather API in the same style as Dark Sky. [0] https://briefsky.app/ [1] https://pirateweather.net

briefsky is what I switched to. I found the Open-Meteo feels-like numbers to be way off in NYC but Pirate Weather has been fine.

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

#217

Post by eitally »

snozolli wrote: post #151
moneywoes wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any good alternatives since?

I like Weawow. It's proven accurate regarding weather trends , but it tends to be overly dramatic. I'm guessing this is related to living in a valley, as the weather to the north and south seems to match their forecast better. It has the data that's indispensable to me: precipitation amount per hour. I don't care as much about how likely it is to rain, I care about whether I'm going to get sprinkled on or drenched. T…

I use Weawow, too, but it's UI is very cumbersome in terms of getting quickly to what you care about. I have Meteograms' widget on my homescreen to get precip/hr and the core metrics similar to the wunderground 10 day view, but I find it much easier to read a daily forecast presented in a more traditional manner so go from Meteogram (tactical) to Weawow (strategic) forecasts.

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

#218

Post by eitally »

schiffern wrote: post #153
nofinator wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been using Today Weather on Android ever since Dark Sky was killed off there. It looks nice, lots of different data sources, and the $7 lifetime Premium Version is a good price.

>$7 lifetime Premium Version I presume you mean the $7 "For as long as the developer feels like it" Premium Version.

fwiw, I paid for a lifetime sub to eHD Weather (by Elecont) ... back in 2013 and still use it. Moreover, the dev still responds to emails within a couple hours. If I can get 10 years of use out of an app for $5, that's excellent value!

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

#219

Post by tshaddox »

ethbr0 wrote: post #205
tshaddox wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Definitely not. It’s common in places where the weather actually changes due to things other than the time of day, i.e. where cold systems move in. For example, look at the forecasts in the Chicago area where tomorrow (March 23) it’s going to be a fair bit colder at noon than at 1am. This is not at all uncommon, and is in fact precisely why it’s important to check the weather forecast in the morning on normal days wh…

Okay, so Antarctica, Chicago, and Cleveland. But the broader point is that the utility of an overnight temperature is that it happens while most people are sleeping, and thus unable to respond to it. Fluctuations while one is awake can be coped with. IMHO, the most reasonable intuitive measures would be: overnight low, rain during the midnight-to-midnight day

> Okay, so Antarctica, Chicago, and Cleveland.

Really anywhere where temperatures change frequently for reasons other than the time of day. Probably the vast majority of people who use temperature forecasts in consumer weather apps.

> But the broader point is that the utility of an overnight temperature is that it happens while most people are sleeping, and thus unable to respond to it.

> Fluctuations while one is awake can be coped with.

I couldn't disagree more. Surely the most common use case by far for quick checks of the daily forecast is simply to decide what to wear when you leave the house in the morning. If you're unhoused, or camping, or you work at night, or you're a gardener, then of course overnight temperature forecasts are also vital.

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

#220

Post by DHPersonal »

mason55 wrote: post #93
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 live in the mountains in Colorado and DarkSky was by far the best UX for viewing upcoming weather. The way they presented projected hourly snowfall was especially good, as was the projected snowfall by day. With Apple Weather, you get a snow icon and a percentage for future days. For DarkSky it was an actual projected snowfall amounts, which is so much more useful. Are we expecting 2 inches? Or 20? On a daily basis…

Try tapping on the icon in Apple Weather to see a graph of various elements.
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