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Last year, Apple acquired the weather app Dark Sky, and shortly after its purchase, Apple shut down the app for Android. Despite the revamped iOS 15 Weather app taking heavy inspiration from Dark Sky, the weather's app standalone iOS app, web app, and API will remain available until the end of next year, compared to the end of this year, as previously planned.

Dark-Sky-App-Featured.jpg

Dark Sky announced in an update to its blog that "support for the Dark Sky API service for existing customers will continue until the end of 2022," and that the iOS and web app will also remain available until the end of next year. Dark Sky had originally planned to shut down its web app alongside the closure of its Android application; however, that was delayed indefinitely.

A number of popular third-party iOS weather apps have relied on the Dark Sky API over the years, and those apps will be able to continue functioning through next year without needing to migrate to a new provider.

The revamped Weather app on iOS 15 includes several features in which Apple is taking clear inspiration and value from its Dark Sky purchase. Alongside a fresh new design, iOS 15 includes live weather notifications, graphical displays of weather data, full-screen maps, and more.

Article Link: Dark Sky iOS App, Website, and API Now Scheduled to Remain Available Until End of 2022
 

haruhiko

macrumors 604
Sep 29, 2009
6,529
5,874
It never really worked especially for the rain notifications etc. except for several countries anyway.
 

benshive

macrumors 6502a
Feb 26, 2017
714
6,141
United States
I've still been using the Dark Sky app and had completely forgotten Apple acquired the company lol. Hopefully the weather app improves quite a bit before the Dark Sky app is eventually shut down.
 

Cosmosent

macrumors 68020
Apr 20, 2016
2,315
2,693
La Jolla, CA
Surprised NO ONE is looking at the BIG picture !

Apple's App of the Day is a competitor to Dark Sky.

As such, it appears to be crystal clear, at least to me, that this is a strategic decision, intended to appease someone OR someones who may have the ability to Break Up the iOS App Store (e.g., a Judge making a ruling on the Epic vs Apple court case, OR, others like her).

Very specifically, Apple appears to be trying to NOT provide ANY additional Ammo to the cause of others.
 
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kc9hzn

macrumors 68000
Jun 18, 2020
1,576
1,887
It never really worked especially for the rain notifications etc. except for several countries anyway.
I’m not entirely sure how the rain notification features work, but I’d assume that the US’s weather observation and prediction network is substantially more advanced than most other countries. And it’s understandable why. Is there another country that gets tornadoes, hurricanes, derechos, squalls, blizzards, floods, droughts, wildfires, damaging hail, snow squalls, dust storms, ice storms, heat waves, and dangerous cold snaps all in the same year? Well, possibly China, but the point still stands that the US is perhaps the most climatologically and meteorologically diverse nation on Earth and has put investments into weather prediction and observation that other countries probably couldn’t justify. And then things like Dark Sky depend on that dense radar network and lightning detection system to provide value-add functionality.
 
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GadgetBen

macrumors 68000
Jul 8, 2015
1,900
3,761
London
This is very disappointing.

When the developer sold it to Apple he said that by working with Apple he could achieve great things with the app. They simply shunted him and then copied and pasted his code into the trash bag that is the Weather app.

Why couldn't Apple make Dark Sky the app version of Beats headphones and give us the choice?
 
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