Dark Sky Removed From iOS App Store Ahead of Upcoming Shutdown

[CarlJ]

The point is apple bought darksky to use its data for their own weather app. Things you liked about darksky are now in the weather app "rain notifications ect". They did this to take a great app away from the greenies. Now I have one less app on my phone.

Hmm, if by greenies you mean people on Android, no, depriving Android users of the Dark Sky app wasn't Apple's motivation for the purchase. The motivation was to get the technology and infrastructure behind the Dark Sky app, to incorporate into Apple's own Weather app. And the Dark Sky API (which programs can use to access the data via https), which is used by a whole bunch of weather apps, is simply moving to the WeatherKit API, with the same web access - different website and and a few field changes, but apps can call it almost exactly the same way they've done before including Android apps.

I expect, long term, part of Apple's motivation was to no longer have to buy weather data from weather.com (as of not too long ago, Siri was still occasionally saying, "my weather data is provided by The Weather Channel") - for having hundreds of millions of users worldwide, I'd expect the monthly bill for that was pretty substantial.

 

[kmann1983]

e: I was wrong

 

[kmann1983]

e: I was wrong

 

[Mlrollin91]

Yes it does.View attachment 2083444

It doesn’t offer percentage breakdown. Percentage breakdown is more important to me than precipitation amount.

Yes, I know the weather app gives percentages in the hourly forecast on the main page, but I found Dark Sky’s to be far superior.

 

[Electrojake]

What a sad day...
The loss of Dark Sky, and the supreme insult is that it's being replaced by that cluttered mess known as Apple's Weather app.

 

[redpandadev]

The Hourly Forecast pane shows precipitation probability if it's non-zero.

Edit: I switched to a location where it is raining right now... it does show for the current day. DarkSky however showed an hourly precipitation probably for the full 10 day forecast hourly views. I would like to have a precip probability drop down to replicate this functionality, or for the view in my screenshot to also show probabilities.



Where does it show this? I only see rainfall in inches, not probability:

 

[planteater]

I'm using it to the last day.

 

[CarlJ]

Edit: I switched to a location where it is raining right now... it does show for the current day. DarkSky however showed an hourly precipitation probably for the full 10 day forecast hourly views.

Dark sky has never had hourly data for ten days. I've been using their API for years. The data is structured like this:

One entry per minute for 61 minutes (now plus the next hour)​

This data is ONLY precip probability/intensity for that MINUTE (no temperatures or anything).​

​

One entry per hour for 49 hours (this hour plus the next 48 hours)​

This data includes overall precip probability/intensity for that HOUR.​

​

One entry per day for 8 days (today plus the next week)​

This data includes overall precip probability/intensity for that DAY.​

 

[Radeon85]

Been using Dark Sky for many years but I find Carrot weather to be a far more feature rich app which I've been using for years also, always found they had better complications as well.

 

[dwaite]

Steve Jobs would have never allowed this to happen.

Like the time when Steve Jobs killed off iMovie HD and replaced it with a version which worked completely differently with less features? When Apple put up the old, no longer supported version for a limited period of time?

 

[MacUser09]

The Dark Sky weather app that's owned by Apple is no longer available for download in the U.S. App Store, suggesting that it has been removed ahead of schedule.

Apple acquired Dark Sky back in March 2020 and has since incorporated elements of the app into the Weather app available on the iPhone (and soon, the iPad).

Dark Sky remained available for purchase as a standalone weather app after the acquisition, but the app's developers earlier this year said that the Dark Sky iOS app would no longer be available after December 31, 2022.

The Dark Sky blog suggested that when the app became unavailable at the end of 2022, already purchased versions would cease providing weather data, but as of now the app still works. It is not entirely clear if the removal of Dark Sky is actually some kind of glitch or if Apple has simply pulled it early.

While the Dark Sky app is officially shutting down at the end of December, the Dark Sky API and website will function until March 21, 2023. Developers who use the Dark Sky API can transition over to Apple's WeatherKit API.

Article Link: Dark Sky Removed From iOS App Store Ahead of Upcoming Shutdown

I have a notice in my Dark Sky app saying "Unavailable as of 1/1/2023.

Support for Dark Sky app will will be ending on January 1st 2023. Dark Sky's forcast technology is now enhanced and integrated into the updated Apple Weather app.

 

[_Spinn_]

I'm just glad that Apple has moved most of the functionality to the Weather app in iOS.

 

[GadgetBen]

I’m still using it and I will to the end. It’s the simplest and best rain notification app out there. The new Apple UI does not go far enough.

Just look at how precise Dark Sky is here when it comes to rain spells. Screenshot just this morning at the same time for me travelling across London:

Dark Sky:




Apple Weather App:



It’s about the pockets of rain and their movement throughout the day. That’s what Dark Sky was always so good at picking out. Agreed, the base map looks better, but the rain radar movement is no longer visually precise.

The team responsible for this chose gradient aesthetics over functionality.

 

[dwaite]

I still find their implementation of weather far superior to that of the native Apple widget.

Would it be that hard for them to continue to allow updates and use by loyal users?

The team that wrote Dark Sky is working on the native SDKs, widgets, weather app and backing data/algorithms. That is why Apple bought the app/service.

So the question is - would you expect to update Dark Sky, and what would those updates be?

A very small (and important) part of Dark Sky was the app which showed off the data. A much larger portion was the servers which among other things had a model for weather prediction. The Dark Sky servers are not up to date with modern weather data or new models for prediction - that work has been happening in WeatherKit.

So are you asking for a new team to be scouted for Apple to maintain a second weather service for a few Dark Sky users? Or, are you asking for Apple to republish Dark Sky as a skin over the (actually maintained) Apple Weather services and the WeatherKit SDK?

 

[dwaite]

Just look at how precise Dark Sky is here when it comes to rain spells. Screenshot just this morning at the same time for me travelling across London:

The team responsible for this chose gradient aesthetics over functionality.

The team (which is partially formed by people from Dark Sky) likely decided that the gradient was a better representation of non-factual (predictive) information.

Or do you think the areas outside those pockets reliably received zero inches of rain, while the pockets got rain 100% of the time?

 

[Will Tisdale 🎗]

It’s just a shame that the Apple Weather watch app is pretty naff and there’s no equivalent complication to the Dark Sky one. If they sorted that (which they likely won’t) it wouldn’t be a big deal switching from Dark Sky to Apple Weather.

 

[James_C]

I am going to miss Dark Sky, it has been my go to Weather App for years. I live in the south west of England (Bristol) our weather is very unpredictable. You can wake in the morning to cloudless skies and warm bright sunshine, then an hour later it can be tipping it down. The hourly probability % is far more useful than the new Weather Apps precipitation bar chart ( as it is confusing does it mean light rain or low probability of rain). I love Dark Skies ‘umbrella warning’ that would give me a notification before I left the house to go work. Also it’s just about to rain warning is very useful ( in my case usually very accurate ) to bring the washing in that was drying outside or as I used last week to bring in some furniture that I was painting outside.

 

[frifra]

Wait, am I missing something? The Weather app gives me rain notifications, as well as snow and other things. I can do everything I used to do in Dark Sky through the weather app on my iPhone.

Also…Steve Jobs killed plenty of apps…and if you don’t like what Apple has become, why are you still with them? Can’t dwell on the past if you want to move forward.

I buy Apple stock. So every time Apple seems to screw customers just to make more money I just watch my stock

 

[Col4bin]

I own the app. Just not sure why all the fuss? I mean, it’s okay. Just strongly over-hyped IMO.

 

[BenGieCruz]

I still believe this app, alongside the rest of the weather apps in the apple store are never more than 87% accurate. Like it'll be raining outside and my app would be like "oh its mf shining outside, go hiking beetch" lol

 

[zerolight]

Steve Jobs would have never allowed this to happen.

We will miss you Dark Sky. You were worth every penny. Or 99 of them.

I will miss the notifications of incoming rain, the massive amount of weather info, the ability to go back in time to find weather, the great Apple Watch app, the customization, etc. I can go on and on.

The current Apple app does all the same stuff albeit without the animated cloud map. You can see what the weather was back until midnight of the current day, get notifications of upcoming weather changes, etc. It's like they reskinned Dark Sky. I uninstalled Dark Sky a year or two ago.

 

[reklex]

hopefully they do the same with the Podcast app

 

[russell_314]

Steve Jobs killed SoundBar when Apple bought and turned it into iTunes.

Im sure there are plenty of examples of Steve Jobs actually allowing this kind of thing to happen.

I swear if I had a nickel for every time, someone said Steve Jobs would’ve never (insert thing they didn’t like here) I would be rich 😂

 

[James_C]

I own the app. Just not sure why all the fuss? I mean, it’s okay. Just strongly over-hyped IMO.

I guess it depends where you live (How predictable the weather is, and how accurate the weather data is) and how much you care about if it is going to rain or not. From other peoples comments it is clear that Dark Sky will have access to different data providers around the world and timeliness and accuracy will be variable. Some say that it is not accurate where they live. In my case it is not 100% accurate but right most of the time. Yesterday I got a warning saying it was going to rain soon. I got the washing in that was hung out to dry. Literally as I got the last item off the line the first rain drop fell on my head.

 

[TwoBytes]

Missing features!
Dark Sky has weather % per hour for future days and sunlight/cloud cover. Great if you need sunlight and planning when to work in the park etc.

The Apple weather app doesn't do this. At a glance seeing percentages per hour has been Dark Sky's best feature. I'm not using weather pro instead of the Apple offering.

See here https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...d-cover-from-dark-sky-for-hourly-sun.2357641/