I'm very disappointed to see Apple consume and extinguish a great service.
They've jumped straight to Extinguish without any of the Embrace or Extend.
Apple acquires Dark Sky
81–90 of 594 posts
Re: Apple acquires Dark Sky
#82Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I don't understand how being acquired by Apple helps further that goal. Removing support for non-Apple devices seems to drastically lower the number of people who you are helping. I would imagine that DarkSky will become the basis for the default weather apps in iOS and macOS, and the number of people who use those defaults is drastically higher than the number of people who use DarkSky iOS/Android as a third-party…
See, hurting existing users is fine! They're only a small part of the addressable market!
From the perspective of "We want to help as many users as possible," this is correct.
Re: Apple acquires Dark Sky
#83I mean, if true - I offer my congratulations to the Dark Sky founders and I wish them the best of luck. That said - part of me is wondering, it's April 1st tomorrow. Part of me is REALLY hoping it is a joke too! EDIT: Grammar!
It's a joke even if it's serious.
Re: Apple acquires Dark Sky
#84Earlier quoted context omitted.
That thoroughly misses the point. They could do both. There is zero reason to shrink the addressable market other than Apple not wanting to play with others.
We may not agree (and I don't agree with Apple's move here) but it's hardly surprising that they would shut it down for their direct competitor platform.
Let's not forget that it is/was a paid subscription on Android, so offering it for free on iOS and keeping paid on Android would still give them a significant edge. Somebody else in this thread mentioned that Shazam is still available on Android even after the acquisition, so it's definitely not as obvious as you suggest.
Re: Apple acquires Dark Sky
#85This seems like the type of acquisition that would go unnoticed by the authorities in terms of anti-monopoly regulations, but probably should be. This is a less expensive way of building a moat than trying to merge with samsung or the like, but bit by bit you can build a huge amount of lockin by taking complementors to your competitors off the market.
Re: Apple acquires Dark Sky
#86Let's not forget that, at least in the US, weather data is publicly funded and excellent forecasts are available at a very granular level. For example, here's the weather at Apple Park: https://forecast.weather.gov/MapClick.php?lon=-122.009263237... ... And here's the graph for up-to-the-minute detail: https://forecast.weather.gov/MapClick.php?lat=37.3367&lon=-1... It ain't pretty, but it works and you've already pai…
These forecasts are based on the GFS, which has finite resolution at 9-km I think, so the "point forecasts" you get from weather.gov are limited by that.
Re: Apple acquires Dark Sky
#87> Our goal has always been to provide the world with the best weather information possible, to help as many people as we can stay dry and safe, and to do so in a way that respects your privacy. I don't understand how being acquired by Apple helps further that goal. Removing support for non-Apple devices seems to drastically lower the number of people who you are helping. I am interested in seeing what happens to this…
https://aerisweather.com - great API, functional, affordable, great customer service and documentation
Re: Apple acquires Dark Sky
#88Re: Apple acquires Dark Sky
#89Earlier quoted context omitted.
> a few companies owning the data The data are public [1]. Dark Sky et al process and repackage those data, along with their own analytics and UI. [1] https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/cdo-web/webservices/v2
Et al - maybe, but Dark Sky built their own near-future "hyperlocal" forecasting engine and they were the first ones to do that. They basically invented the whole genre. Perhaps they expanded into repackaging NOAA data now, but that's not what Dark Sky is about.
http://jackadam.github.io/2011/how-dark-sky-works/
They used an ML/statistical approach to forecasting, rather than physical modeling. They had some secret sauce in doing fast ML on phones, before libraries like CoreML existed.
Re: Apple acquires Dark Sky
#90Sigh. I mean, congratulations to the founders of Dark Sky. It’s a wonderful app and they deserve all the money they’ll get from this and they deserve a lot of credit for not selling user data when almost every other weather app does. But shutting down the API and Android apps feels like an egregious move by Apple. And I hope we actually see a good improvement to the Apple weather app as a result of this. I remember a…
Seriously—as someone who lives in a place where a simple rainstorm can have major consequences, DarkSky's "It's going to rain in the next hour"-style alerts have become an important tool.
I'm an otherwise happy tvOS, macOS and MBP (though Android-using) customer but I'm going to need to re-consider lest I get bitten again in the future.