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Apple Acquires Weather App Dark Sky
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I live in an area with about 12 microclimates, and it's worked great for me. I also travel (well, used to travel) and it's worked with about a city block or two radius.
Since you're not saying anything except generalizations it's hard to not assume you're just trolling.
Why isn't it now FREE? I'm not paying for it so refuse to use it. Sucks to be you, Apple.
This is interesting, especially in light of Apple’s November acquisition of DayView ... Apple is clearly preparing for an update to how it caters the weather to its users
A few years ago, I was out at the beach when a friend of a friend said that it would start raining in 4 minutes and last for 7 minutes before turning sunny. I laughed at him. He was exactly right. Easiest purchase I've ever considered and it's been frighteningly accurate ever since. A good purchase by Apple.
More likely the weather apps that use the Dark Sky API and allowed people to pay like $45 for lifetime subscriptions are the ones who are going to be giving refunds. A lot of us got a good 6+ years out of the DS app for the little money.
Happy it's going to stick around until the end of 2021, but I am not looking forward to the website going away. It's nice having something that just shows you the weather and doesn't have all the other stuff like videos, blog posts, etc.
I’m hoping Apple will add a weather app (DS based?) to macOS.
Dark Sky worked reasonably well for me when I first got it. The forecasts were mostly accurate, but it has gotten worse and worse over time. I've gotten to where I don't even bother with it anymore.
The thing that kills me about the iOS weather app is why doesn't it match what TWC app says if that's where it's getting the data‽ I can be looking at the forecast in the weather app, tap TWC in the bottom corner, and TWC will open with a completely different forecast - precip chances being wildly different, temperatures being off 5-10°, etc.
The thing that kills me about the iOS weather app is why doesn't it match what TWC app says if that's where it's getting the data‽ I can be looking at the forecast in the weather app, tap TWC in the bottom corner, and TWC will open with a completely different forecast - precip chances being wildly different, temperatures being off 5-10°, etc.
But Dark Sky does serve weather info to Canada, you just have to do it via a web page. So the data is there. I never understood why they could serve up forecasts via web page but not via an app.
I can get down with elements of Dark Sky being integrated into everything with an Apple logo on it. Bring it on!
I would like to know the backstory on why DarkSky sold out to Apple.
I don’t like Dark Sky’s graphs. I don’t like the horizontal layout and how they stretch out or contract the spacing of the temperatures, for example, based on how hot or cold it is. I don’t like how you have to select what you want to look at (temperature, precipitation, feels like, etc.).
Apple’s weather app tells me what I need to know simply. It had the temperatures and conditions for the week (sunny, cloudy, etc.) and for the hour. If there’s a chance of precipitation, it will become viewable in the hourly forecast. If there’s no chance of precipitation, it hides away. It’s simple, clean, and easy to understand.
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.
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.
They’ll reach more people being absorbed by Apple and baked into iOS for free than if they kept trying to sell their app on either Android or iOS.
I'm not so sure its that accurate. I have a weather station outside my house and I find their temps are always higher than mine.
All weather apps have its own shortcomings. Apple should have made DarkSky free after the acquistion.
May not be accurate for you but it sure is for me.
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.
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.
The reason is the data source and analytics this company can provide. Apple probably didn't get a very good deal with the Weather Networks, just like Yahoo! Weather before that. So, they are now doing that in house. Very possibly, they want to improve Siri and maybe other ML projects for Apple Vehicle efforts.
