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Dark Sky iOS app will no longer work from Dec 31
- thrdbndndn 4y agoLink should be https://blog.darksky.net/dark-sky-has-a-new-home/ https://blog.darksky.net/dark-sky-has-a-new-home/
- darknoon 4y agoSo sad, I use this app every day!
- tern 4y agoJust downloaded the new iOS weather app and it has all the features I use from Dark Sky. I even prefer the interface! For what it's worth, I often enjoy when Apple absorbs apps. I thought they did a fantastic job with Shortcuts.
- Alex3917 4y agoSame, it’s literally my most used app. I’m growing container figs in a low-soil medium, so if they go even an hour too long without water they freak out.
- jmann99999 4y agoI am a long-ago purchaser of Dark Sky. I find I never use it on my iPhone. Carrot Weather is always superior in both the forecast and Radar. Dark Sky's "it will rain in 5 minutes" was hit or miss. I live in the mountains, so perhaps, Dark Sky works well in a less difficult environment. That said, if it disappears tomorrow, I won't miss it.
- 404mm 4y agoI used Dark Sky on iPhone until they redesigned the Weather app. Then the stock option became an immediate drop-in replacement. I wish the API remained open so others can use it but as far as the app itself, it was never really that good.
- pronoiac 4y agoI'm picking up Carrot Weather now. Its "Editors' Choice" description says it draws data from Dark Sky, though? Edit: disregard the source comment. It draws from multiple sources, like Foreca.
- sklargh 4y agoYou can pick your data source from a list...it also has a nice function that will use your weather station for local conditions within a given radius. That said you need to use a specific brand of weather station for that to work.
- mahmoudhossam 4y ago
- Drybones 4y agoUpsetting about the app, but the new iOS weather app has the functionality essentially. The real gut wrencher is the darksky website going down. It’s how I check weather most of the time a no other browser weather site comes close to it in simplicity and features.
- quickthrowman 4y agoIt definitely does not have the same functionality, you can only see the current temp/precip prob %/humidity/dewpoint/wind speed/etc, you can’t see the forecasted stats I listed in the iOS weather app, you can only get hour by hour temperature. I’m very disappointed that Dark Sky is going away. If Apple added in the ability to see forecasted hour by hour wind speed/humidity/dew point/etc, it’d be a decent replacement.
- dcormier 4y agoIn iOS 16 it’s greatly improved. You can now get the predicted hourly temperature, UV index, wind, rainfall, feels like temperature, humidity, visibility, and atmospheric pressure.
- samcat116 4y agoThis has changed completely in iOS 16
- pgoggijr 4y agoMost of the functionality is coming in iOS 16: https://www.macrumors.com/2022/06/08/ios-16-weather-app-update/ https://www.macrumors.com/2022/06/08/ios-16-weather-app-upda...
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- Shank 4y ago> I’m very disappointed that Dark Sky is going away. If Apple added in the ability to see forecasted hour by hour wind speed/humidity/dew point/etc, it’d be a decent replacement. In iOS 16 (and in macOS Ventura, which adds the Weather app), you can view hourly temperature, UV index, wind speed, precipitation, feels like, humidity, visibility, and pressure, on a graph. You can also tap and hold to view individual hourly data. You should see if the updated experience works for you!
- hollywood_court 4y agoI’ve used this app for years. I will have to check out the new iOS weather app. Honestly the Dark Sky rain predictions are usually wrong more often than not. I use it to monitor rain to keep my zoysia nice, but it has been disappointing me recently.
- CrazyStat 4y agoIt must vary by location. Dark Sky is usually right on point for me. I was pissed when they cut off Android support. I eventually got over it and subscribed on my iPad so I could continue using it, because nothing else I've tried comes close.
- nazgul17 4y agoCheck what their source is: surely, they don't compute the forecast themselves.
- junofan 4y agoThey do. That was the selling point.
- OGWhales 4y agoThe data is public and comes from NOAA but they are doing their own forecasting. Here is a blog post from one of the devs about their process (2011): http://jackadam.github.io/2011/how-dark-sky-works/ http://jackadam.github.io/2011/how-dark-sky-works/
- outworlder 4y agoFor me they were on point, sometimes down to the minute. That is, until Apple bought them.
- TimMeade 4y agoThe predictions used to be dead on. it was crazy weird how accurate. But shortly after apple purchased they started slipping. Now rarely accurate.
- iamdamian 4y agoI'm bummed about this. I've used the two side-by-side since I learned about this, and it seems like Dark Sky gives far richer detail. In fact, sometimes, I've noticed that Dark Sky will accurately predict rain when Apple Weather doesn't. (I haven't ever noticed the reverse.)
- nocoiner 4y agoI’ve noticed the same thing as well. I knew this was coming, but was nonetheless a bit gutted when I saw the headline - I just don’t think Weather is a perfect replacement (yet?) for Dark Sky.
- ezfe 4y agoAre you on iOS 16? iOS 15 doesn't fully integrate it.
- iamdamian 4y agoI was describing my experience on iOS 15 for the past year or so. The incorrect results I'm seeing are in-app—what do you mean that it's not fully integrated in iOS 15?
- sanedigital 4y agoThere's a brand new Weather app in iOS 16. It's (more or less) the same functionality as Dark Sky was.
- calsy 4y agoPrior to iOS 16, Apple Weather was using 'The Weather Company' for their forecasts I believe.
- wodenokoto 4y agoYep. I’m on ios15 and it says “weather channel” at the bottom
- raybb 4y agoWhat weather app are people using on Android? I'm currently using Geometric Weather + MyRadar: https://f-droid.org/packages/wangdaye.com.geometricweather/ https://f-droid.org/packages/wangdaye.com.geometricweather/ https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.acmeaom.android.myradar&hl=en_US&gl=US https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.acmeaom.an...
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- _emacsomancer_ 4y ago- wX (based on NWS data): https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=joshuatee.wx https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=joshuatee.wx / https://f-droid.org/en/packages/joshuatee.wx/ https://f-droid.org/en/packages/joshuatee.wx/ - weawow: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.weawow https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.weawow / https://weawow.com/ https://weawow.com/
- daxfohl 4y agoI also use weawow ... with darksky as the provider. The other providers (at least the free ones) seem far less accurate (for Seattle anyway). I've started using willyweather for higher-fidelity UV data, and its forecasts (from NOAA) seem reasonable and I like the forecast-vs-actual graph. Though the UI requires some extra clicks to get all the info that weawow manages to get onto a single user-friendly page. (First-world problems....)
- JeremyNT 4y agowX is truly amazing. I don't understand why it's not more popular. I guess the UX is focused on nerds and power users so it may not get a lot of love from those just looking for a quick forecast at a glance.
- ThePowerOfFuet 4y agoExodus Privacy gives wX a clean bill of health, but weawow seems to contain a tracker, which is unfortunate given that it will need access to my location to be useful.
- takoid 4y agoMy girlfriend uses Apple’s Weather app and I still use Dark Sky. My anecdotal experience is that Dark Sky is significantly more accurate than Apple’s Weather app, especially when it comes to rain. Anyone have any insight into why this is the case, especially considering Apple bought Dark Sky?
- neiled 4y agoiOS only seems to be taking Dark Sky weather as of iOS 16, so guess start comparing them again as it was released today!
- savoytruffle 4y agoI wonder if you can source that. I am pretty confident Apple Weather has the same back-end data since iOS 15 a year ago, at the least.
- neiled 4y agohttps://www.macrumors.com/2022/06/08/ios-16-weather-app-update/ https://www.macrumors.com/2022/06/08/ios-16-weather-app-upda...
- WaitWaitWha 4y agoI had home automation based on Dark Sky API. Sad to see it go. (mental note: make sure there are always alternate solutions and manual over-rides for external resources.)
- aaomidi 4y agoThey will have a REST api again. https://developer.apple.com/documentation/weatherkitrestapi https://developer.apple.com/documentation/weatherkitrestapi
- jamesdf 4y agoThe API is replaced by https://developer.apple.com/documentation/weatherkitrestapi https://developer.apple.com/documentation/weatherkitrestapi which is available as a REST API and can be used on non-Apple platforms.
- mnutt 4y agoMaybe check out https://pirateweather.net/ https://pirateweather.net/, I think the author had similar ideas.
- dpcx 4y agoCare to share what kind of automation you had?
- WaitWaitWha 4y agocyclone house prep (sump pump, shutters, top off battery backup, exercise backup generator, generator fuel messaging to top off, notifications, etc.) delay watering if rain is coming warn of weather change so do not get caught in open waters That is all I have now.
- atchoo 4y agoA platform buying up cross-platform apps and making them uni-platform really should be slam dunk anti-trust. It's obviously anti-consumer and concentration of market power.
- katbyte 4y agofwiw it wasn't available in Canada, i'd been waiting years for it, and now via the apple weather app it will be.
- Gigachad 4y agoIt's a weather app. There is no monopoly on weather info. The data is pretty much public and anyone could start their own alternative.
- wpietri 4y agoIn which case, it sounds like there was no need for Apple to buy this.
- Gigachad 4y agoThe reason seems pretty simple, because it was cheaper to buy it than to pay their own people to try and recreate it.
- wpietri 4y agoFunny, you just explained how easy it was. But now it's so hard that Apple engineers can't just rebuild the parts they need? I think the simpler explanation is one you'll find in many comments here: Dark Sky was unusually good, and Apple bought it to get all that goodness to themselves.
- TillE 4y agoThis is just asking why acquisitions happen. There are plenty of reasons, and they typically don't demonstrate monopolistic behavior, certainly not in any legal sense.
- cryptoz 4y agoDoes anyone know if Apple is actively using the barometer data from iPhones to work on improving weather forecast accuracy? Dark Sky claimed they were doing this but offered no information about it, so I am skeptical that they actually did work on this. AFAIK they were not weather nerds / atmospheric scientists, and did not work with researchers on the use of the data, or do any work on statistical verification to know if their barometer data was helping or not, so I expect that they just collected some data but didn't use it. But Apple could be in a prime position to use the barometers to make weather forecast accuracy improvements. Google too, of course, but AFAIK they are not working on this.
- bilsbie 4y agoIs anyone applying deep learning to weather forecasting? Seems like there might be a disruption opportunity there.
- cryptoz 4y agoYes, there have been many ML efforts in weather forecasting, but I'm not sure many/any have been successful. The bar for success is pretty high, because you have to beat raw data collection and real physics equations that model the atmosphere. Generally, the physics and raw data with models are beating the ML. At least, last I checked - some years ago.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- D_Joni 4y agoIt's funny how this is posted two days after I finished my Weather web app which uses Dark Sky's free API: https://weather-dj.netlify.app/ https://weather-dj.netlify.app/ Let's hope that in the future Apple continues to deliver the same API structure as Dark Sky did, because it will be a big shame if they did some changes or limitations to it. Although I only use this app mostly for my personal use, the effort that I've put into this would be for nothing's worth.
- tjohns 4y agoApple's replacement for the Dark Sky API is here: https://developer.apple.com/documentation/weatherkitrestapi https://developer.apple.com/documentation/weatherkitrestapi
- ghiculescu 4y agoIs this free? Seems like big news if yes. Edit: it’s not. See https://developer.apple.com/weatherkit/get-started/ https://developer.apple.com/weatherkit/get-started/
- jacobn 4y agoFrom the blog post: "The Dark Sky API and website will continue to function until March 31st, 2023." "Developers, Apple’s new WeatherKit API lets you incorporate Apple Weather forecast data into your app and is available for iOS, iPadOS, macOS, tvOS, and web." Sorry for your loss :-/
- lelandfe 4y agoSorry to say – the Dark Sky API will shut down end of March next year[0]. Apple recommends switching to WeatherKit's API. It is not free, requiring a paid Developer Program membership, which is $99/year.[1] That includes 500k API calls/mo. On that linked WeatherKit page, they include a DarkSky migration guide. There are fields that are no longer being offered. (The fact that `temperatureHigh` doesn't have an analog makes me wonder if the table isn't telling the full story) [0] https://darksky.net/dev https://darksky.net/dev [1] https://developer.apple.com/weatherkit/get-started/ https://developer.apple.com/weatherkit/get-started/
- londons_explore 4y agoDarkSky has a very nice UI... but the actual weather data and predictions seem lackluster at best. If they were confident in their predictions, they'd compare against competitors - for example, "If you use our 3-hour weather prediction to decide the best time to go for a 20 minute jog each day, you'll stay dry 16% more of the time than using NOAA weather predictions".
- gamblor956 4y agoAgreed, maybe it was great in some places but in SoCal it was always wrong.
- wombat-man 4y agoIt's usually worked for me but sometimes it's wrong. Is there a better option you know about?? I love the concept of seeing if I have time to walk somewhere before it rains.
- londons_explore 4y agoIn the UK, I use netweather which has an atrocious UI, but displays the raw radar data on a 180 meter grid. Using that and a regular untrained eyeball just looking at how the rain is forming seems to make far better predictions. Whereas darksky seems to use a 1km+ grid and very crude predictions like 'the rain will move in the same direction as the wind'.
- bqmjjx0kac 4y agoIt's significantly less user-friendly, but there's always https://www.weather.gov/ https://www.weather.gov/ (if you live in the US).
- wombat-man 4y agoI like weather.gov but it doesn't show the "next hour" precipitation prediction that I like from dark sky.
- miketery 4y ago
- akeck 4y agoMany thanks to the developers over the years! The app saved us all from getting drenched at a wedding celebration. I'm forever grateful for that.
- keepquestioning 4y agoWhere does Dark Sky get the raw data from?
- rory 4y agoLargely governments: https://darksky.net/attribution https://darksky.net/attribution
- throwawaygog6 4y agoAnyone knows how Dark shy was able to do hyperlocal weather prediction?
- fredsmith219 4y agoIt has been really inaccurate for me the past 6 months. I’ve gotten wet a couple of times when I trusted it. It was great, but Apple has killed it. R.I.P Dark Sky.
- wrycoder 4y agoI used Dark Sky, but MyRadar is my favorite.
- savrajsingh 4y agoWhile we’re on the topic of weather apps - can someone explain why the radar view is often choppy, with random incomplete tiles, weird zooming, and just generally feels janky? Just opened the weather app (ios) and the radar view seems clunky and incomplete. I know the answer must have to do with weather radar / nexrad data feeds, just wondering why we haven’t figured out how to reasonably smooth it out.
- ideamotor 4y agoThe UI is amazing but the forecasts they use are the worst.
- rwhitman 4y agoThe Apple Weather app UI has far less granular detail than Dark Sky iOS app for hourly predictions. I liked the hourly view of temp, humidity, precipitation. We lose that in Apple Weather and its the main thing I check in the app. But the rain predictions have been wildly inaccurate in Dark Sky lately, including an incident last night where it told me I was in a rain storm when I was not...
- bcherry 4y agothe iOS 16 weather app finally has the hourly predictions in it, which is why they are now ready to remove Dark Sky entirely
- chris_wot 4y agoAll I can say is that at least Macs show the weather in Celcius when you are in the correct region. We have Windows 11 systems here that no matter what we do show the weather is in Fahrenheit on the Windows taskbar, which is utterly useless to us.
- mmis1000 4y agoI guess it is region dependent or language dependent or both. My win 11 showed me the temp in Celcius for me though.
- Gelob 4y agogood, im glad iOS users are feeling the pain that android did when apple bought them
- crino 4y ago
- beefman 4y agoFolks here said the new Weather app has the same info. I upgraded to iOS 16 about a year before I normally would just to check this. And nope, it doesn't have the one feature I use Dark Sky for – the one feature no other weather app has: the ability to see what the weather was yesterday. It's what Dark Sky calls "Time Machine". (Can't believe Apple let them use this name this long, now that I think of it.) (I supported the original crowdfunding campaign for Dark Sky in 2011.)
- adamsiem 4y agoI always use this! Great for assessing business activity and comparing localized weather to activity.
- jdminhbg 4y agoHistorical data is still available in the WeatherKit API at least: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/72581627/cant-find-weatherkit-historical-data-and-trouble-with-attribution https://stackoverflow.com/questions/72581627/cant-find-weath...
- 8ytecoder 4y agoCarrot has it. It’s called Time Machine. I feel like it’s always had it.
- savolai 4y agoWow that’s what I call a fun app.
- curveball3301 4y agoWell, that sucks.
- ur-whale 4y agoLong gone are the days where you purchased an application and it was yours. Software is eating the world indeed. There's however the tiny, pesky detail that it's getting increasingly harder to own things. I'm waiting for the day your Tesla car will gently inform you that it's been decommissioned, or that Tesla has unilaterally decided that you weren't - for some reason - a worthy driver, and will refuse to turn on. Interesting times ahead.
- izerik 4y agoI am using rainviewer[1] that also uses radar to give precipitation forecast. [1] https://www.rainviewer.com https://www.rainviewer.com
- anshumankmr 4y agoCan someone explain what was great about dark sky? All I really know about it that it was an weather app acquired by Apple from some other discussions about it. It seemingly had a "Time Machine" feature to see the past weather but is that really a game changing feature? Was the UI good ?
- wyre 4y agoHyperlocalized weather forcasting down to the street address, wealth of information laid out in an accessible way with a clean UI. I live in the PNW and love that I can see the hourly forecasted rainfall for the day.
- zargon 4y agoI really don't care about the UI, just the data. And Dark Sky data was superior to anything else I've seen.
- teekert 4y agoJust a question: Is dimming the launch screen on dark mode gone now? I can't find it and my new launch screens look like fisherprice toys with black holes (the widgets)... Where is my nicely dimmed Marshian surface stock photo that allows focus on the app/widgets without blinding me? I like the new lockscreens, especially the one where you see the earth and where there is still sun and where it is night, beautiful! Unfortunately the Sleep focus I use for it completely blurs it away... No setting to change this... It feels like it's not really finished.
- zenexer 4y agoI’ve been on the iOS 16 beta for a while now. The Weather app is still hot garbage compared to Dark Sky: 1. It’s never up to date, and there’s no way to tell when it last updated. This has always been an issue, and it’s still not fixed in iOS 16. As I write this, Dark Sky says it’s 70°F outside, while Weather says it’s 68°F. Dark Sky is closer: it’s 71°F. There’s no way to get the Weather app to refresh. The temperature predictions in Weather are out-of-date. In a few minutes, it might randomly update. 2. There’s no way to see the precipitation probability in the Weather app, despite that being a very basic feature. Apple brands themselves as an outdoorsy lifestyle company. As someone who actually spends a lot of time outside, I consider this an essential feature. 3. Custom alerts are gone. Really, most alerts are gone. “Next-Hour Precipitation” alerts exist as an option but don’t work. Dark Sky’s precipitation alerts are almost always correct, but I rarely get alerts from Weather, and when I do they’re unhelpful. 4. Historical weather is missing from Weather. I’ll be going back to using the NWS website once Dark Sky is gone. At least it’s better than the Weather app. I don’t understand how a company that brands themselves as an essential component of an outdoors lifestyle could ax a feature like Dark Sky’s precipitation notifications and replace them with “next hour” notifications. That might make sense if you’re just using the app to decide whether it’s a suitable time for a jog, but that’s about it. If you’re going to be outside regardless of the weather, and you want to know whether to cover your backpack or temporarily take shelter, sorry, you’re out of luck. I’m curious whether they made similar mistakes with the new Apple Watch Ultra. Once the cool factor wears off, is it actually going to be as versatile as Apple claims? Is it really for use outdoors, or is it just for showing off at parties? Anyone who’s tried to use an Apple Watch in the rain or water on a regular basis has probably experienced usability issues at one point or another; for example, if you’re swimming, Apple Watch might repeatedly prompt you to select your type of exercise, despite the fact that you’ve already enabled water mode and can’t interact with the screen. Rain can land you in a similar situation. Edit: Reworded some excessively snarky comments.
- pbronez 4y ago> There’s no way to see the precipitation probability in the Weather app, This is the #1 thing I use Dark Sky for. I powered up the Weather App to look for this feature, and yeah... not there. Boo.
- reportgunner 4y agoI use Klara on android, seems much better than Dark Sky from what I see in the screenshots.
- xg15 4y agoI can understand their rationale - who wouldn't want to be bought up by Apple, and the system app integration was likely Apple's decision - but the press release's attempt at rationalizing still makes for some hilarious corpospeak: > Our goal has always been to provide the world with the best weather information possible, to help as many people as we can stay dry and safe, and to do so in a way that respects your privacy. There is no better place to accomplish these goals than at Apple. We’re thrilled to have the opportunity to reach far more people, with far more impact, than we ever could alone. ... > Service to existing users and subscribers of the Android app will now continue until August 1, 2020, at which point the app will be shut down. Subscribers who are active at that time will receive a full refund. Weather forecasts, maps, and embeds available on the Dark Sky website will also shut down on August 1, 2020. Even if you follow their reasoning here, apparently blessing new iOS users with their technology who have never asked for it (by integrating it into the system app) is more important than keeping the tech available for old Android users who did ask for it.
- mwexler 4y agoI love DarkSky. It's the first app I paid for. I'm going to miss it, it's API, and it's approach to making weather data quick and easy to comprehend. It's how I felt the first time I used Hipmunk and it's gantt chart approach to finding a plane when sorted by "agony". Sometimes, the right UX on the same basic data can make all the difference.
- iudqnolq 4y agoMy $500 backpacking satellite communicator, manufactured by a 17B company, uses the Dark Sky api to get weather forecasts. They've got a hilarious FAQ saying basically "Apple won't talk to us either, but we hope they don't shut it down soon". Sadly exactly what I've come to expect from any software written by Garmin. It's all incredibly half-assed compared to their hardware and actual satellite/gps algorithms.
- thirdsun 4y agoThey can use Apple's WeatherKit REST API which is the replacement for the Dark Sky API. Garmin really doesn't seem to understand that in this day and age they are supposed to be a software company as much as they are a hardware company.
- tomaskafka 4y agoThey don't. I developed and now maintain a weather app for Garmins, and the state of firmware is really bizzare. You can see individual device team merge patches from some kind of core, and then eventually releasing them - so the new bug appears in a simulator, then slowly makes its way to various devices during the next 1-4 months, and then, if you complain loud enough, the same process happens again with a fix.