Apple Acquires Weather App Dark Sky

[glowplug]

Windy is the weather app to get:

‎Windy.com - Weather & Radar

‎A UNIQUE WEATHER FORECAST VISUALISATION While most weather forecasting apps rely only on free global models, Windy has gone a few steps further and invested heavily in the most accurate models available, always at the highest possible resolution, to ensure accurate weather forecasts...

apps.apple.com

 

[WaxedJacket]

Weather Forecast and Weather Forecast Accuracy for Your City

5-day weather forecasts for the United States in a nice, easy to read format, AND the 1- to 3-day out accuracy of other weather forecasters (Accuweather, The Weather Channel, MyForecast.com, Intellicast, and the National Weather Service) including links to their forecasts.

www.forecastadvisor.com

You can go to this site and enter your zip code to compare the accuracy of the various weather providers. For my zip in California Dark Sky does not do so well. Might be better where you live.

View attachment 902561

From their FAQ section alone, this site screams "LOOK, DATA*!! pls buy us out.



*data collected is subjective"

 

[gene731]

This is welcome news. I've also had hit or miss results from Dark Sky (and Forcast Bar which uses Dark Sky data), but I still like the concept.

Most importantly though, weather apps have been a major source of location data leaks. I like having even my non-hyper local forecasts show the city I'm in at the very least, but don't like the idea that my pings are being aggregated somewhere. Having this all inside Apple's privacy policy will be reassuring.

Only my opinion here, I too like the default iOS weather app. The features on the stock weather app look really good on iOS 15 beta 6

Many of you may not like Dark Sky but ever since I bought it 3 years ago I’ve almost never been caught by surprise by rain again. Sometimes it’s off by 5-15 minutes but the forecast is good enough.

I think it’s a good move because the stock weather app is really outdated. It was great for 2007 but not for 2020. I only use the stock app to quickly look at weather conditions around the world.

just out of curiosity are you on iOS 15 beta 6. This is the first beta of 15 I have messed with. Anyway wait until you see all of the new features coming to iOS 15 weather app.

 

[Expos of 1969]

May be decent but I will stick to my national weather service.

 

[The-Real-Deal82]

Had Dark Sky for years and it was super accurate compared to other weather apps. The worst thing that happened to it was Apple buying it. The accuracy has dropped significantly and I think this is largely because it’s not only available on one platform. The reporting data is much less and it’s really made this once great app, rather rubbish. Unless this is now a free app, don’t even bother is my advice.

 

[CarlJ]

The accuracy has dropped significantly and I think this is largely because it’s not only available on one platform.

The data comes from personal weather stations and national weather service weather stations. None of which run either iOS or Android. How do you explain this affecting accuracy?

 

[jseymour]

The data comes from personal weather stations and national weather service weather stations. None of which run either iOS or Android. How do you explain this affecting accuracy?

You never noticed the "Report" button in Dark Sky? When Apple removed support for Dark Sky from the Android platform there was now a lot less users hitting that button.

I noticed the difference. I hardly think it was coincidence.

 

[CarlJ]

You never noticed the "Report" button in Dark Sky? When Apple removed support for Dark Sky from the Android platform there was now a lot less users hitting that button.

I’ve seen it. I’ve used it occasionally. It’s not their main source of weather data.

 

[jseymour]

I’ve seen it. I’ve used it occasionally. It’s not their main source of weather data.

But it is a source, only now it's not as much of one as it used to be. In fact: Since Android and iOS have roughly the same market share in the U.S., by about half as much.

 

[Böhme417]

Had Dark Sky for years and it was super accurate compared to other weather apps. The worst thing that happened to it was Apple buying it. The accuracy has dropped significantly and I think this is largely because it’s not only available on one platform. The reporting data is much less and it’s really made this once great app, rather rubbish. Unless this is now a free app, don’t even bother is my advice.

Frankly, Dark Sky has never been as accurate for me as it has forever been praised for being. I was bummed after shelling out for it when it isn’t any better than most free apps. So, it’s really not any worse for me now.

 

[tivoboy]

The actual temperature reporting has been off grossly in our area for many months. I have sent feedback to dark sky several times and they have responded that they know there is an issue. Also, at this point in the worlds history I don’t understand why they can’t add some form of AQI to the app.

 

[e-coli]

The data comes from personal weather stations and national weather service weather stations. None of which run either iOS or Android. How do you explain this affecting accuracy?

The data also comes from the barometers in iPhones. It creates a mesh network of mini weather stations. It works really well in dense urban areas. I’m sure there’s less accuracy in rural areas.

 

[Blue Hawk]

I think it’s good for the US. But I’ve used a few weather apps with Dark Sky in Germany and it’s a mess. Temperature wrong with many degrees, same for dew point. It shows rainy weather when it’s sunny outside. Very useless.

 

[flipin]

Can anyone who has already updated to iOS 16 reveal if the weather application includes the dark sky time machine feature? I know it’s a minor one, but dark sky is the only place I’ve seen it. After a couple of bug releases I will upgrade and find out myself.

 

[testcard]

Can anyone who has already updated to iOS 16 reveal if the weather application includes the dark sky time machine feature? I know it’s a minor one, but dark sky is the only place I’ve seen it. After a couple of bug releases I will upgrade and find out myself.

Not in the Weather app, but the Carrot weather app has a Time Machine feature.

 

[jseymour]

I deleted Dark Sky months ago. While I do miss the "rain coming" notifications, I finally became fed up with all the other apps' failings. Radar has always been wonky. Weather forecasts more often wrong than right. Switched to AccuWeather.

 

[Theryesider]

Can anyone who has already updated to iOS 16 reveal if the weather application includes the dark sky time machine feature? I know it’s a minor one, but dark sky is the only place I’ve seen it. After a couple of bug releases I will upgrade and find out myself.

Yes it’s there just updated and jumped back to a random day in 2011.

 

[OUsooner08]

Can anyone who has already updated to iOS 16 reveal if the weather application includes the dark sky time machine feature? I know it’s a minor one, but dark sky is the only place I’ve seen it. After a couple of bug releases I will upgrade and find out myself.

Nope not there. Also been running the betas all summer, 16 is very stable, i updated our regular devices yesterday. I don’t see a reason to delay updating.