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WeatherKit
- twicetwice 4y agoLooks like this is what they did with DarkSky after they acquired it. It looks awesome. It's a shame it's only available to Apple developers and users Edit: my bad for skimming too fast, I'm glad there's a REST API, that's unexpected and cool!
- junofan 4y agoSays there’s a REST API?
- twicetwice 4y agoOops, that's what I get for not reading closely enough! In my defense, my eyes glazed over after the fourth Apple-product-OS version number ;) but yes, my bad on that Looks like it's 500k calls per month per Apple Developer Program account, so essentially $99/yr. Not totally unreasonable pricing, although I wish I could buy it a la carte. It's a bit out of my price range for hobby projects. If I ever start developing apps for my family members (who mostly have iPhones at this point) though this will be a nice freebie to come with that. Ah well.
- Thaxll 4y agoOpenWeather is better and has 1M calls per month for free. https://openweathermap.org/price https://openweathermap.org/price
- lelandfe 4y agohttps://developer.apple.com/weatherkit/get-started/ https://developer.apple.com/weatherkit/get-started/ Here's the pricing for those that might need >500k/mo. It looks like it won't be available until after this hits beta, but it looks to be $50/mo extra for each 1m calls (plus the price of a membership).
- leohonexus 4y agoSeems like a REST API is available, but you’ll have to be in the Apple developer program to access it. I think this might be to allow previous Dark Sky API users to continue using it.
- dodgerdan 4y agoAnd idea why the Apple Weather app still has the “The Weather Channel” logo on it? I hope they continue to support Darksky, at least until the Apple Weather app is on par with it.
- kmlx 4y agofrom my understanding Dark Sky never had a network of weather stations. they collected data from multiple sources: https://darksky.net/attribution https://darksky.net/attribution
- lelandfe 4y ago> I hope they continue to support Darksky Some bad news: iOS app support ends at the end of this year, and the API/website gets yanked next March. https://blog.darksky.net/ https://blog.darksky.net/
- ezfe 4y agoBecause iOS 15 doesn't have WeatherKit in it yet. iOS 16 removes the Weather Channel logo.
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- semicolon_storm 4y agoIs there anything in this that DarkSky didn't provide years ago before it was acquired by Apple?
- ramraj07 4y agoDarkSkys API offering wasn’t free for more than 10k requests per month so there’s that.
- infinityio 4y agoperhaps, but this api needs a $99/yr account, so isn't really free at all
- modoc 4y agoAFAIK there is actually LESS data than DarkSky (no daily high, low, feels like, etc..).
- haldujai 4y ago
- lstamour 4y agoThe links are appreciated, but the rest of the post is too negative. Try to correct in a kind way, next time. Also, since it’s beta, it’s possible the API isn’t working correctly yet or that data is available in some regions but not yet available in all regions. Documentation isn’t everything. :)
- digthenerdy 4y agoAll that is there and listed in the documentation.
- modoc 4y agoIt's really not - https://developer.apple.com/weatherkit/get-started/ https://developer.apple.com/weatherkit/get-started/ temperatureHigh, temperatureHighTime, apparentTemperatureLow, and dozens of other fields that were in DarkSky have "NONE" listed for the Apple API.
- annexrichmond 4y agoI learned in a meeting at my last job that many weather apps solely exist to collect and sell location data. Don’t have specific evidence but it seemed to be par for the course. So I’m glad to see this API, hopefully it’ll help more privacy focused weather apps thrive.
- bredren 4y agoApple has continued to take on services third parties previously used to exploit the private information of Apple’s customers. This includes Apple Card, but also the recently introduced multi-week payment options Apple is offering to buy its products. (Previously offered by other services “for free.”) I have no doubt that Apple is looking at how data is leaking across the ecosystem and is seeking to stop it as much as possible. I’m curious to see what else is in the works.
- Rygian 4y agoWhat business advantage does it being to Apple to (just) stop those data leaks?
- cma 4y agoIt is possible they don't get 30% cuts of any of that sale of info so want it out to avoid contagion ("but they dont pay 30% on X" spreads to "I don't want to pay 30% on Y and maybe we'll go to court over it"). Based on the emails that have come out from various trials, they want a 30% cut of everything, eventually including real world services mediated through the phone.
- threeseed 4y agoApp Store is 14 years old. If Apple wanted to take a cut of literally everything that was facilitated using the phone e.g. Amazon or eBay they would've done it a long time ago. The benefit to Apple is the same reason that Google invests in Project Zero. Higher consumer confidence that a product is safe = higher engagement = higher revenue.
- saagarjha 4y agoUsing it in a watch complication right now to replace the low density ones that Apple provides; the native API is quite pleasant to use. Seems like they’re rapidly evolving it and dogfooding it heavily, since there’s a ton of deprecated API that seems to support internal clients, and hidden fields (AQI) that aren’t exposed yet to third party apps. Setup is a little clunky though because you have to register with them and wait a little while before they grant you access.
- ducktective 4y ago
- cube00 4y agoYou've got to wonder why the focus isn't on providing a seamless general Rest API experience for all services rather then having specific Swift extensions for each service.
- mrexroad 4y agoThere is a rest api. > It’s easy to use WeatherKit in your apps for iOS 16, iPadOS 16, macOS 13, tvOS 16, and watchOS 9 with a platform-specific Swift API, and on any other platform with a REST API. [edited for tone]
- cube00 4y agoI was questioning why WeatherKit needs a "platform-specific Swift API" at all. If the general REST API in Swift is good then WeatherKit can be integrated into Swift apps as easily as any other service. If it's not easy then improvements to the general REST API could be considered.
- bjtitus 4y agoThere are all kinds of potential performance benefits to a native SDK. Cross app caching for such common data could be a huge boon for watchOS complications & Home/Lock Screen widgets, for instance. No idea if they are implementing those kinds of enhancements but it’s no surprise that a native SDK would be provided. Also, how would they implement the privacy preserving black box location implementation with a REST API? There is no need for the app to ask for or receive specific location details by using this SDK.
- metadat 4y ago> Cross app caching for such common data could be a huge boon for watchOS complications.. What is your differentiation criteria between anticipating a "huge" boon versus a "regular" or "modest" boon"?
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- caseyf7 4y agoDoes this provide any historical data like daily max, min temperatures? Quality historical weather data would be great to have in this.
- saagarjha 4y agoI think the REST API is supposed to support this, but I didn't spot anything relevant in the Swift interface.
- knadh 4y agoThe Norwegian Meteorological Institute has an excellent free HTTP/JSON weather API that covers the globe. No signup required. https://developer.yr.no https://developer.yr.no
- gspr 4y agoYr (Norwegian word meaning drizzle rain) is indeed truly excellent, but it should be noted that while its coverage is global, their forecasts outside of Europe are based on lower-accuracy models.
- Thlom 4y agoTheir weather app is also pretty good. It comes with an English language option.
- bongobingo1 4y agoiOS: https://apps.apple.com/jo/app/yr-no/id490989206 https://apps.apple.com/jo/app/yr-no/id490989206 Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=no.nrk.yr&hl=no https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=no.nrk.yr&hl=n...
- account42 4y agoDoes the app provide anything valuable that you don't get with the website?
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- rabuse 4y agoI just want a nice GPS app with weather radar mixed in
- adastra22 4y agoWe have WewtherKit, yet we still don’t have an iPad port of the official iOS weather app?
- sadjad 4y agoIt's coming with iPadOS 16: https://www.apple.com/ipados/ipados-16-preview/features/#weather:~:text=your%C2%A0apps.5-,Weather,-Weather%20app%20on https://www.apple.com/ipados/ipados-16-preview/features/#wea....
- clintonb 4y agoThe strangest omission to me is the calculator app.
- kmeisthax 4y agoThis is deliberate. Jobs saw what the calculator app looked like on an iPad and pulled it at the last minute. This is a problem specifically caused by the iPad's design. On desktop you just prohibit the user from making the calculator app window bigger than reasonable and that's that. But iPads require that the current app fill the entire screen, so any apps that can't are really awkward and frustrating to use - as can be seen when you run an iPhone-only app on an iPad[0]. Third-party calculator apps have the same problem, too. Before you mention Stage Manager, I should point out that making the calculator app an iPad Pro (2021) exclusive feature would be even sillier than the current situation of not having one. At one point this was solvable by putting a widget in the Today view, which would mean you had a properly-proportioned calculator on your homescreen. However, several iPadOS updates have broken this fix: * iOS 14 introduced a new widget type intended to live on homescreens that does not support user interaction. In iPadOS 14, these widgets sat on top of the older interactive ones and often pushed them far off the bottom where they were basically useless. * iPadOS 15 redesigned the homescreen to bring it to parity with iOS 14[1], at the expense of completely removing the ability to have the Today view on the homescreen. You now have to swipe to the left to get at it. So on a current-OS iPad, the only place for a calculator app to live that is guaranteed to always be a reasonable size is the legacy widgets section of a rarely-used Minus World of a homescreen that lives to the left of your other homescreens. Everywhere else incurs various levels of silly-looking design. [0] Only recently did we even get the ability to rotate iPhone apps contrary to the device orientation. Before that, if you used a keyboard case, iPhone apps would more or less demand you take the iPad out of the case and hold the iPad in portrait in order to use it. [1] If I had a nickel for every iOS feature that took a year to come to the iPad, I'd have two nickels.
- dengjiuhong 4y ago
- phkx 4y agoIt‘s the first time that I have come across the term ‚hyperlocal‘. As far as I understand in this context it means ‚high spatial and temporal resolution‘. Is that correct? The Wikipedia article states that hyperlocal is used for information, which is relevant to the population of some given community. Does this always refer to a geographically defined community or has it been extended to other logical communities, as well?
- Closi 4y agoThe term hyperlocal was used by the Dark Sky app which was acquired by Apple two years ago. I believe the term was used to mean that the weather forecast was based on your GPS position rather than the town you are in, allowing for more 'real time' forecasts like 'it is going to rain in the next 5 minutes, but this will stop in 10 minutes' (while a traditional forecast would just say '10% chance of rain at 1pm in Leeds'). The ability to get some rain and look on an app and say "it looks like this will ease off in about half an hour, so we might as well get another beer before we go to the next pub" is really useful, and on that timespan there can be different weather in different parts of town which is why a more refined forecast is required.
- suction 4y agoWhat data is Apple using in Central Europe? Because all weather apps only using data from US providers only are hilariously wrong.
- ghosty141 4y agoI wonder too, they get the rain forecasts wrong all the time. They are at least off by 1-2 hours or somtimed forecast rain when there is none. Compare that to other apps like WeatherPro which are way closer
- suction 4y agoThat's also what I'm using (WeatherPro). But sadly it's on the decline and seems to have been abandoned since the data supplier was acquired by another company. I only heard rumours though.
- dan1234 4y agoNot sure for Central Europe, but for the UK, their app has logos for the Weather Channel, along with BreezoMeter for air quality info. Doesn't feel as accurate as the Met Office's app, but not too bad (tends to over predict chance of rain).
- ezfe 4y agoAre you in iOS 16 or iOS 15 - in iOS 15 the Weather Channel logo shows in all countries.
- ChrisMarshallNY 4y agoI’m looking forward to it, but it might be a while, before I can rely on it. It’s almost certainly iOS 16 (and above)-only. I always write my apps to support (at least) one version back, at time of release. I’m also interested in weather (*<|:o) or not it will be completely free to use, or if there will be some attempt to monetize (like the current Weather app takes you to that God-awful Weather Channel page, if you want anything other than a summary). At least, I hope the built-in app finally becomes usable. [UPDATED TO ADD]: Looks like it’s sort of “the Google API” model (https://developer.apple.com/weatherkit/get-started/ https://developer.apple.com/weatherkit/get-started/). If your app isn’t that popular (like most of mine), then it’s free (with attribution).
- robsws 4y agoI don't really know Swift, but does the following line from that site make any sense? "And with Swift concurrency, it’s easy to request weather data with just a few lines of code."
- danhau 4y agoI think it just says it‘s easy to request weather data concurrently and to integrate that into other concurrency stuff, thanks to Swift. But I‘ve never used Swift so I don‘t know.
- dbbk 4y agoBasically just saying you can use async/await to fetch the data, I think
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- dagmx 4y agoWithout Swift Concurrency, you'd write something like this (pseudocode): GetWeather() { results in // Do something with the results UpdateUI(results) } The part in the curly braces is a closure/completion handler. The GetWeather call is not blocking, so it runs on another thread and then it calls your completion code when it's done. This looks fine in a small example, but it quickly gets gnarly when you need to pipe those results to something else, or you can also end up deep in many completion handlers. With the new concurrency model it's just this let results = await GetWeather () UpdateUI(results) Now let's say your UpdateUI call was also non blocking: GetWeather() { results in UpdateUI(results) { DoSomethingElse () } } Which just becomes this let results = await GetWeather () await UpdateUI(results) DoSomethingElse()
- emsy 4y agoApple could use this to build a weather app for the ipad. Calculator kit when?
- lh7777 4y agoI don't know about Calculator, but Weather for iPad is coming: https://www.theverge.com/2022/6/6/23156804/apple-weather-app-ipad-ipados-16-wwdc-2022 https://www.theverge.com/2022/6/6/23156804/apple-weather-app...
- ozaiworld 4y agoGlad to see this released publicly! I used it internally last year, and it was frustrating but useful (mostly relating to not having access rights and quickly changing versions).
- avipars 4y agoDid they base this off of DarkSky?
- cosmiccatnap 4y agoIt's interesting to me how people think that just because it's apple it's not still skimming your data. Saying something is "privacy first" is cheap and easy. Proving it is another and we have enough evidence to support that they are not perfect on this front. For my money, I'll just buy a porch thermometer and look at clouds...
- oblib 4y agoI made my own weather app for the area I live in. NOAA makes that easy here in the U.S. so it's trivial to hack for anyone with some web skills: https://azartiz.com/branson/ https://azartiz.com/branson/
- greggsy 4y agoA few years ago there was an amazing site with graphs laid out like yours, with historical data for any location. Sadly it was flash based, and the author decided not to port it across to some other framework. I really miss easy to use graph-based weather sites.
- neurodyne 4y agohttps://weatherspark.com/ https://weatherspark.com/ It's now something akin to a weather almanac, describing the general weather patterns of locations. I still find it useful, but it's a shadow of its former self.
- gnicholas 4y agoThis summer, I decided to build a better weather website with my 8 year old as an educational project. We have found that the weather forecasts in our area are terrible and decided we could build a more accurate prediction algorithm. I haven't coded in 20 years (and never did any web dev), and I'm trying to figure out what tech stack to use so that my (1) it's comprehensible to my kid, (2) it's not too frustrating for someone as inexperienced as me, and (3) it allows us to get something off the ground relatively quickly. Anyone have suggestions for what technologies to use, or if there are sample weather websites that we can look at and model after? edit: just to clarify, I'm not talking about the tech stack for making predictions, just for the user-facing website. We have already developed an algorithm that predicts weather much more accurately than any weather website/app we've been able to find, in our local area. We are not looking outside our local area at this time.
- notatoad 4y agoi think you should probably start by reassessing your expectations. creating accurate weather forecasts is a huge industry worth billions of dollars, and is a very hard problem. creating a better prediction algorithm is probably not something that's going to be achievable for an inexperienced programmer and their 8-year-old.
- oefrha 4y agoYou say you’re trying to build a more accurate prediction algorithm to beat meteorologists. Given that goal, you should probably look to acquire a supercomputer first; tech stack wouldn’t be a concern until then.
- mh- 4y agoDisagree, if he's only interested in producing a better forecast for his location.
- calsy 4y agoIm interested to know how weather forecasts can be trivialised or 'simple' in other words for a local area. How is it easy to predict what happens in a washing machine of pressure systems and weather patterns split between 2 hemispheres that are in different seasons?
- donniefitz2 4y agoI always wondered how DarkSky got that "hyperlocal" weather data. After getting into amateur radio and learning about APRS, I'm thinking they used APRS weather beacons to obtain that data. If not, it sure would be good source for very localized weather in an app.
- is_true 4y agohttps://darksky.net/attribution https://darksky.net/attribution
- e15ctr0n 4y agoA quiet note of appreciation for Adam Grossman, one of the co-founders of Dark Sky. It's one thing to have an idea about a weather app, quite another to pursue it successfully within a small design agency and then make it polished enough over the years to sell it to a giant corporation like Apple. Even during that acquisition, Grossman went to bat for DarkSky's users, making sure that the API was kept live (for 2+ years running now). Post-acquisition, he has evidently become comfortable enough in a corporate environment to help evangelize the API's transition to an Apple-native SDK and Swift API. The creation of the REST API with a full mapping guide means that Grossman continues to bat for DarkSky API developers. The use of the native Swift API to create brand new Apple weather apps also appears to be well done. All-in-all, it has been a remarkable journey from a small, independent agency to a large corporate while keeping core values alive, a journey where many others have flamed out. An inspiration to all. Hats off to you, Grossman!
- megax 4y agoWhile I appreciate the foreseeable improvements in the native (Apple) weather app, I will sorely miss the no-nonsense UI of DarkSky. It has been my go-to for years now, especially as it relates to my photography hobby. I sure hope someone steps up to replace the DarkSky experience as Apple will surely cherry pick a small subset of their core pieces to implement, likely leaving the best weather geek features on the chopping block.
- xtat 4y agoWhat qualifies as new and innovative in apple land is always entertaining to me