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A eulogy for Dark Sky, a data visualization masterpiece (2023)

• BugsJustFindMe 2y ago
  Dark Sky was their lesser product. Their "lines" interface at forecast.io/lines before they rebranded was peak weather UI, but the internet has almost no record of it ever existing.
• LordKeren 2y ago
  The dark sky API was the backbone of several tinkering projects that I built when first getting in to coding. Fond memories and many thanks to the dark sky devs
• i80and 2y ago
  Dark Sky was genuinely the most irreplaceable app I've ever used. I don't think I'll ever forgive Apple's butchering it for spare parts.
  • chatmasta 2y ago
    Have you used the latest Weather app? Which DarkSky features is it missing?
    • flkiwi 2y ago
      The unmatched clarity and simplicity of the data. The Weather app isn't in the same league. To my eye, it's a cluttered, gaudy mess, certainly compared to Dark Sky. Carrot Weather has a mode that is almost a replacement for Dark Sky, btw, though the location-based alerts have gotten less and less reliable over the years (which I am completely unable to understand).
      • chatmasta 2y ago
        The blog post does a good job of enumerating the nice interfaces in Dark Sky. But it spends no time comparing them to the equivalents in Weather app. If it did, then the parity of features would become clear, not only in terms of information presented but also user interface. Also, FWIW this post is from 2023, and the Weather app has improved significantly since then. For example, the post references a Reddit comment complaining about the lack of a precipitation map: > there anything that has the precipitation graph similar to dark sky This is available in Weather app. You can see the hourly graph, and you can also see the map with precipitation overlay. The notification feature you ask for is also supported. I repeat my original question: can anyone actually name a feature from DarkSky that isn’t present in the current Weather app?
        • flkiwi 2y ago
          It is cluttered and messy. Or, if you prefer, it does not have the feature of thoughtful information design that was a primary factor in Dark Sky's success, in favor of cartoonish and distracting animations and cluttered layout. The presence of information or functionality is not the only factor in success. (If it were, the Diamond Rio would be more iconic than the iPod, because it could arguably do more, though sometimes with less capacity given the timing.)
        • fivestones 2y ago
          I remember darksky used to seed me notifications that were something like “Rain in your location starting in 2 minutes.” You could almost set a timer based on it. 2 minutes later it would be raining. It was super helpful when doing things outside with the family. If the current weather app can do this, I don’t know how.
          • chatmasta 2y ago
            Click the settings hamburger (a universally recognized icon on iOS, and one of only two buttons on the main page of the Weather app). Then there is a prominent banner that says “Stay Informed: Get notifications for severe weather, rain or snow near you.” Once you enable this, you can then configure the alerts to include severe weather, or simply rain in the next hour.
            • mh- 2y ago
              For anyone else struggling to find it with these instructions: I had to choose a location (I have a few added), then scroll all the way to the bottom (past averages, past "Report an Issue") and there's an easily-overlooked "Manage Notifications" button. I had turned mine off, probably from way back when I used Dark Sky and didn't want redundant notifications.
              • chatmasta 2y ago
                Weird, for me it’s in the corner in a sticky footer. I’m on iOS 17.6 and iPhone 15 Pro.
      • boringg 2y ago
        I agree with you in that no other app has comparable data to the weather data that Dark Sky had and the layout was amazing. Yes someones comment that the weather app has more features but its the quality of the features that are missing. I sometimes think that the reason Dark Sky was so good is that it spent a lot of money on the data side of things and probably refreshed their data and models much more than a larger company would. They were probably burning their money quite fast. As a function of the acquisition Apple tried to reduce the spend on data/processing while keeping the functions (it didn't succeed). Weather app has the same problem. All in all - seems like a well traveled road: nimble company trying to acquire new customers/market has better features until large companies take over and drive profit/revenue - diluting quality and pushing away customers. (different incentives)
        • flkiwi 2y ago
          I feel like people obsess over Dark Sky because it would have slotted almost unchanged into some hypothetical post-Mac OS 9 design language if "lickable" OS X had never existed. Or, if you prefer, Dark Sky embodied the engineered simplicity and power that made people so loyal to the earliest Apple GUI software in favor of the more, uh, ebullient character that has driven the last 20 years of Apple UI design (sic). Note that I still put Apple's UI design well ahead of both Android and Microsoft, but it has regressed substantially.
    • walls 2y ago
      There's a link at the top of this comment section that goes over it.
      • chatmasta 2y ago
        That’s a link to a discussion from March 2023. My question is about which features are missing from the latest Weather app, after more than a year of improvement.
        • boringg 2y ago
          Weather app is not accurate and its slow. The features may be there but they aren't well implemented. Diluted for the masses.
    • joeconway 2y ago
      % cloud cover by hour
      • chatmasta 2y ago
        You’re right, this one is missing. Although I’m skeptical of the utility (and accuracy) of something as precise as “percentage of cloud cover,” compared to what is available in the app, namely “clear, cloudy, mostly sunny, etc.” Is there a meaningful difference between 25% cloud cover and 35%? Or is it better to just give names to the “conditions” at buckets of 25%, 50%, 75%, etc?
        • ShroudedNight 2y ago
          I would expect certain segments of aviation to find the additional granularity critical.
          • chatmasta 2y ago
            Presumably they shouldn’t be using a consumer weather service and mobile app.
        • joeconway 2y ago
          in my experience its more like: 0-5% - Sunny; 5-60% - Partly Cloudy; 60-100% - Cloudy; I've not seen other descriptors, and to view it changing over time its just on the timeline as a sun, sun+cloud & cloud emoji's It's not useful other than as a binary 'is it cloudy' which in Bay Area weather it is a meaningful difference between 30% and 60% coverage
        • shagie 2y ago
          The best cloud cover that I've found is yr.no For example (and it always takes a bit for me to find it) https://www.yr.no/en/details/table/2-4887398/United%20States/Illinois/Cook/Chicago https://www.yr.no/en/details/table/2-4887398/United%20States... (and https://www.yr.no/en/details/graph/2-4887398/United%20States/Illinois/Cook/Chicago https://www.yr.no/en/details/graph/2-4887398/United%20States... ) And here's their API - https://developer.yr.no/featured-products/forecast/ https://developer.yr.no/featured-products/forecast/ It breaks it down by overall, low, medium, and high clouds.
    • nycdatasci 2y ago
      With DarkSky, you used to be able to report current weather conditions. Augmenting weather modeling from sensors with real-time reports from users is critical for high levels of accuracy. Somehow this seems to have been completely overlooked in the integration with Apple's weather app.
      • chatmasta 2y ago
        You can do this in the Weather app. Click “report an issue” and it asks you to report current conditions in your area. Admittedly this information is not surfaced in any way like “other users say it’s raining.” And “report an issue” isn’t a great name. But it does say they incorporate user reports into their data.
    • writeslowly 2y ago
      If I wanted to see the heat index at 3PM in Dark Sky, I could just tap the "feels like" button under the hourly forecast (pictured further down in the linked blog post) and look at what it says at 3PM. I just tried in Apple Weather, and the process was: 1. Tap on the hourly forecast, or the day, to go into the graph screen 2. Tap on the dropdown icon 3. Tap "feels like" 4. Either drag your finger along the graph until the time indicator at the top indicates you're close to 3PM, then read the temperature, or you can try to read it directly off the graph, but the axes aren't labeled clearly enough to make this feasible
      • jachee 2y ago
        Why would you need degree-perfect precision in a subjective measurement? Eyeball it. It’ll feel like around 90ish. Or it’ll feel like around 85ish. There’s no reason for an indication that it’ll feel 87.500.
      • dwaite 2y ago
        You only need to cross-navigate detail views (via the drop-down) if you start by looking at some other piece of information. 1. Scroll to the "Feels Like" tile 2. Tap it
    • boringg 2y ago
      Weather app is no where near as accurate and its slow (especially on any radar work). The features may be there but they aren't well implemented.
    • jghn 2y ago
      The biggest thing I find Weather to be missing is hyperlocal & timely accuracy. While I understand the UI complaints others have, for the handful of things I normally want to see I find Weather fine enough vs Dark Sky. BUT, the accuracy took a noticeable downward trend.
      • chatmasta 2y ago
        Assuming this is true, why did it happen? Presumably Apple is using the same data feeds and backend as Dark Sky? Or are they missing something?
        • jghn 2y ago
          I don't think that's a safe assumption. The effect was immediate and noticeable. I've seen other posts in this thread after I said this that suggested this was a cost savings measure.
        • metabagel 2y ago
          From using the Apple Weather app, I didn’t get the feeling that Apple Weather actually adopted much of the guts of Dark Sky, even though Apple promised to do so.
      • dwaite 2y ago
        Weather has hyperlocal precipitation alerts. I don't believe Weather or Dark Sky have had hyperlocal weather forecasting. I would absolutely love such a feature (since I live far from the center of town in an area with microclimates); I would say both were equivalently faulty on my weather forecasts.
    • metabagel 2y ago
      It doesn’t seem to be nearly as accurate. I’ve abandoned the Apple Weather app in favor of The Weather Channel App, because the former seemed unreliable to me.
    • jefb 2y ago
      The feature where it tells me the weather. I'd say there's about a 80% chance that it loads the forecast in under 5 seconds. Loading the radar has far worse performance - it only works ~50% of the time and failures just show an empty map forever. When it does manage to load the weather I've found the accuracy to be hot garbage.
    • whyenot 2y ago
      It's crap. No offense intended if you are on the team maintaining Apple Weather, but the interface is much more busy than DarkSky was and there is a lot less clarity and simplicity in how weather information is displayed. My impression is that the quality of the forecasts is also not as good, but that might just be my personal bias. The fact that Apple chose to shut down one of the best apps on the iPhone in order to promote Apple Weather is still really irritating. I keep Darksky in the app graveyard on my phone, next to Apollo.
  • wlesieutre 2y ago
    The first year of the new weather app they didn't even give you hourly precipitation chance throughout the day. If I had to pick what were the two key features of Dark Sky it would be 1) impending rain notifications, and 2) hourly precipitation chances. It's included now, but still not as well as Dark Sky did it. For an app not trying to reproduce Dark Sky, but doing a nice job with an overview of the day's weather, I've been using Overlook. But now I'm seeing that its app store listing is gone. https://apps.apple.com/app/overlook-weather/id1639571738 https://apps.apple.com/app/overlook-weather/id1639571738
    • user3939382 2y ago
      I’ve been using Carrot. Okay but also not as good.
      • baggachipz 2y ago
        Plus a very expensive (relatively) subscription. I loved Dark Sky because I bought it and then I had it.
        • krger 2y ago
          >Plus a very expensive (relatively) subscription. I loved Dark Sky because I bought it and then I had it. Ongoing customer value (hyper-local precipitation forecasts) that has ongoing costs for the developer (weather data) is unsustainable without ongoing revenue (subscriptions). This may have had a thing or two to do with Dark Sky ending in an acquihire.
          • mbirth 2y ago
            There’s RainAlarm which achieves a similar feature by downloading (freely available) radar imagery and notifying you when the rain echoes are nearby. Worked pretty well when I used this a few years ago. (I’ve now moved to a country where Apple’s rain warnings are pretty accurate.) https://rain-alarm.com https://rain-alarm.com
        • 2y ago
  • robgibbons 2y ago
    As an Android user who had a Dark Sky subscription, I have a similar sentiment.
    • kernal 2y ago
      Today Weather has precipitation alters and its UI is, IMO, better than that of Dark Sky. If you're looking for a free app there is also Weawow. Both allow the use of Apple's weather data.
  • lynndotpy 2y ago
    To put it gently, Apple destroyed a fantastically valuable piece of software and made my life worse. Since then, Apple has failed to come close to offering in their weather app what DarkSky offered for years prior. Besides the API, besides the hyper-local (and, in my experience, _always_ accurate) forecasts, besides the excellent visualizations, besides the nice web app, what I miss most was the history. I loved the history. It was perhaps DarkSky's least appreciated feature. You could search (at least within the US) for any date in the past few decades, and find the temperature and precipitation and whatnot for a given location. You could see what the weather was like on those important dates in your life. You could see what the weather was like the day after those important dates in your life. It's a little bit of memory that's been excised from the commons. It still makes me sad.
    • deveac 2y ago
      As a motorcycle rider and someone who goes top-down in my Jeep all summer, the real-time incoming rain alerts of DS were freakishly accurate and I leaned on them constantly. Apple integrated the feature and they became comically inaccurate. (The opposite of an accurate rain forecast is not great.) After getting soaked one too many times, I finally got frustrated enough to chase down the best replacement. Don't love Carrot Weather near as much, but it is the best alternative I've found for heads up on incoming precipitation. Sigh. I still remember the days of getting a "moderate rain starting in 13 minutes" alert and hoping on the bike and zipping home in time. Don't know how they did it so well.
      • lynndotpy 2y ago
        This was almost my experience exactly. I used DarkSky as a grad student with a twenty minute bike commute and responsibilities all over a large campus. Without fail, DarkSky kept me dry. (Or, at least allowed me to avoid the worst of it.)
      • JumpCrisscross 2y ago
        > Apple integrated the feature and they became comically inaccurate Any clue why? Did broadening the pool of reporting devices from Dark Sky users to the general iPhone population somehow break their models?
  • fundad 2y ago
    It's unlikely there were enough paying customers to pay the bills, especially compute; and Dark Sky willingly exited.
  • wsatb 2y ago
    Something changed before Apple even bought it. It was not nearly as accurate by the time Apple bought it. I do still miss the app, but the data or the algorithm changed before the purchase.
    • mekal 2y ago
      i noticed the same exact thing. i thought weather had been solved with dark sky. then at some point something got messed up. i would love to know the full story behind this.
  • al_borland 2y ago
    Same. If Apple had any sense they would have just slapped an Apple logo on Dark Sky and called it the new weather app, then used it to influence their core design language throughout the rest of the OS. I’m using the weather app now, but am still longing for the spiritual successor to Dark Sky. I had a similar feeling when Google bought and killed Sparrow. They should have simply replaced the Gmail app with Sparrow, instead, they killed the only email client I ever genuinely enjoyed using.
    • sdenike 2y ago
      I feel like I wrote this lol. I couldn’t agree more with every aspect of your comment. The loss of Sparrow was a sad day, only to be topped with how Apple handled DarkSky.
  • soheil 2y ago
    Honestly, thinking that Apple will ever give a damn about individual apps is like expectin a cat to learn calculus.
  • mekal 2y ago
    this...every time i use the damn apple weather app i am reminded how much i miss dark sky and my contempt is rekindled. makes me wonder how often this sort of tragedy happens.
  • zombiwoof 2y ago
    100000% No excuse to not just buy Dark Sky and let them continue unburdened by corporate politics
• lagniappe 2y ago
  I used to use darksky a lot, because it reminded me of Back To The Future 2 when it'd do the "done raining in 5 mins". It's a stupid request, but if other services could figure this out along with a cute UI like darksky, I'd be your best friend. Weather sites can have the best info, but if the UI is not good then its much harder to draw conclusions from the stats.
• starmftronajoll 2y ago
  After the shutdown of Dark Sky, I switched to Carrot, which added a layout that mimics Dark Sky's design (the layout option is called "Anubis" in the Carrot app). I've found it to be a largely seamless replacement.
  • flkiwi 2y ago
    Agree, though there's still something about Carrot's underlying design language that is less subtle and refined. It's a very, very minor complaint given the effort Carrot clearly made (and their evident appreciation for a competitor that did things better for many users' preferences), but there's some weird information processing lag I still experience with Carrot because I'm fighting the UI even though it looks almost identical to DS. In the end, I actually enjoy the experience because (a) it's so minor and (b) it gives me an opportunity to play with how my own brain perceives the universe. So that's fun.
• trts 2y ago
  I actually feel Apple did a decent job gobbling it up and incorporating some of the best features into their native weather app. Merry Sky is a good homage but I've never evaluated it much for accuracy: https://merrysky.net/forecast/new%20york/us https://merrysky.net/forecast/new%20york/us
  • culi 2y ago
    I agree. I couldn't find anything in the OP post that the Apple weather app doesn't currently do and, imo, do in a much more refined way
    • metabagel 2y ago
      I became exasperated with the unreliability of the Apple Weather app. It gave embarrassingly wrong predictions on a frequent basis. Dark Sky was amazing. I resent Apple for killing that very accurate and useful app.
      • IAmGraydon 2y ago
        I find Windy to be the best app for weather predictions as it allows you to look at all of the major models (and some not so well-known) in a stacked view, so you can see how many agree with each other. I agree with you on Apple Weather - its predictions are nothing short of terrible. It's incorrect so often that it almost seems like a random prediction would be correct just as often.
  • bradboimler 2y ago
    It screwed Android users over though, no?
  • metabagel 2y ago
    I think the most important feature is accuracy. Maybe, Apple Weather is more accurate for other regions, but by my observation it is absolutely not accurate in regards to predicting rain where I live in Southern California. And we don’t even get that much rain.
• deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
• ChrisArchitect 2y ago
  (2023) Discussion then: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35263115 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35263115
  • dang 2y ago
    Thanks! Macroexpanded: A eulogy for Dark Sky, a data visualization masterpiece - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35263115 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35263115 - March 2023 (251 comments)
• ChrisArchitect 2y ago
  Been using Merry Sky (https://merrysky.net https://merrysky.net) quite happily as a replacement mostly for the layout/quick data viz. Mostly accurate/helpful as Dark Sky was, tho some rare data blackouts when it can't pull the data or whatever, but it's back in a few hours
  • jszymborski 2y ago
    Second Merry Sky
  • Stephen304 2y ago
    Also check out briefsky. Like merrysky it supports the pirate weather API but it's open source / self hostable (at least I don't see any link to merrysky's source) and it supports several other weather APIs as well. I found switching it to the tomorrow.io API was much more accurate for beach weather.
• yokoprime 2y ago
  Looks cool, but wasn’t available for where I live in Europe, so never got to experience it.
• nate 2y ago
  Tangent maybe. But when I used Dark Sky, I and everyone who asked me about the weather and I'd give them data from Dark Sky were always impressed by my accuracy for knowing when it would rain and stop raining. Now I use Carrot with the AccuWeather(sp) api, and it'll be pouring right on top of me, and Carrot tells me "no rain for the hour". Is this just weather getting harder and harder to predict, or is AccuWeather trash, or anyone else find something that seems as accurate as Dark Sky was?
  • culi 2y ago
    I find the same issues with Apple's weather app. And even Windy's notifications. The only helpful thing is an actual heatmap visualization of rain. That always gives you a lot more context and a better understanding of what's happening and for how long. I actually really love Apple's rain heatmap
  • techsupporter 2y ago
    One of the many reasons I pay for Carrot is to get the other, more expensive, data sources. If you do stump up, you get access to the Apple Weather API--what once was Dark Sky--as well as Foreca. I've found both of them to be very accurate based on what Carrot reports. (For what it's worth, I never used the Dark Sky app directly. I've always consumed it via Carrot or a free API key that Dark Sky used to give out for individual developers.)
  • wil421 2y ago
    My former coworker was insufferable about Dark Sky being accurate but I never found that to be the case. Same with his insistence I use Waze to go through random parking lots, only to find our cowokers beat us back from lunch using a sane route but I am digressing. Where I am big thunderstorms are very common and it can be dry a quarter mile away. It’s a good indicator but I never found Dark Sky, Accuwhatever, or Apple Weather to be accurate with the rain forecast.
  • damontal 2y ago
    Seemed like more of a gimmick to me. Many times it would say something like Rain stopping in 10 minutes. Then 8 minutes later… Rain stopping in 15 minutes. On and on as it steadily rained.
• BenFranklin100 2y ago
  The old Weather Underground weather app is another example of an acquisition destroying superb graphics design. Its clarity, information density, and beauty has yet to be matched.
• et-al 2y ago
  Weather Line was another beautifully weather app based on Dark Sky I really miss: https://vimeo.com/364505041 https://vimeo.com/364505041 https://kevinclark.ca/work/weatherline/ https://kevinclark.ca/work/weatherline/
  • dmd 2y ago
    https://weathergraph.app/ https://weathergraph.app/ is its spiritual successor.
    • et-al 2y ago
      Thanks for sharing this! I miss this concise UI so much.
• ckolkey 2y ago
  I've been using flowX for many years, first on android and now on ios. I've found it to be incredibly customisable, and particularly good at visualising incoming weather. Gladly paid for it for years now https://www.flowx.io/ https://www.flowx.io/
• whalesalad 2y ago
  I always thought Dark Sky had one of the worst UI's on the planet.
• kasperset 2y ago
  I like this simplistic presentation of Weather Strip https://www.weatherstrip.app/ https://www.weatherstrip.app/ I think it builds upon this Wetter for iOS app http://wetter.micw.org/apps/wetter/index.php http://wetter.micw.org/apps/wetter/index.php Wetter is more detailed and complicated to read as compared to Weather Strip but I like the information such as CAPE and pressure info.
• jcalx 2y ago
  The Dark Sky blog [1] had a post on their (then-new) app design, and also had many other posts on some details of their weather prediction algorithms and other technical bits. Sadly the blog was deleted after the Apple acquisition, but it is archived on the Wayback Machine. Some good reading! [1] https://web.archive.org/web/20191210071310/https://blog.darksky.net/the-new-dark-sky-app/ https://web.archive.org/web/20191210071310/https://blog.dark...
• bradgessler 2y ago
  The one problem it had, that it still has to this day under Apple's reign, is not being able to tell the difference between clear skies and if the precipitation map tiles are still loading.
  • moepstar 2y ago
    > if the precipitation map tiles are still loading. which they seem to do for prolonged periods or won't load at all, no matter the hardware and internet connection (tested on: iPhone 8+, iPhone SE 2020, iPhone 15 Pro - makes no difference) Most infuriating thing they do (while we're at it): load everything except the area i'm interested in. I can't even...
    • bradgessler 2y ago
      Yeah. Given how many iPhones are deployed into the world, I wonder how many people looked at that data visualization and thought, "Clear skies! I guess I'll continue..." and instead headed directly into inclement weather.
• bobbylarrybobby 2y ago
  Not quite as feature-rich, but for a similar “shape-based” UI, Weather Strip is fantastic. It provides, IMO, an even clearer picture of the weather than dark sky did.
• tiffanyh 2y ago
  Is DarkSky not an actual weather app? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35268026 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35268026 > Meteorologists seemed to feel that Dark Sky was a graphics processing tool, not a weather app. --- “Any weather forecast beyond a couple of hours ... depend on supercomputer models that work according to the laws of physics ... But when we talk about Dark Sky, all it was doing was taking the visual input of the radar and extrapolating what was going to happen over the next couple of hours.” https://slate.com/technology/2022/12/dark-sky-weather-app-apple-meteorologists-rip.html https://slate.com/technology/2022/12/dark-sky-weather-app-ap...
  • georgehotelling 2y ago
    Every time I looked at the animated weather app, I would see the animation start in the past where clouds moved and grew and shrank naturally. As soon as it passed the present moment, the clouds would become fixed shapes and continue on whatever their current vector is. In the visualization there was no attempt to model clouds growing and shrinking. The clouds would suddenly start skidding across the screen. I've read that is what the underlying precipitation "models" did as well, but obviously can't confirm.
    • counters 2y ago
      Yes; they basically just extrapolated from these "rain blobs" on the visualization as the short-term forecast they provided to users. There are some long-since wiped blog posts that provide a bit more context on how they do a little bit of statistical processing of the general forecast model output to help with they "hyper-localization," but the reality is that it was terribly unsophisticated relatively to what is traditionally done in meteorology. The rain nowcasting feature that Dark Sky popularized is now table stakes in any consumer weather app. There's little value in making these types of forecasts any more complex (e.g. using AI or other contemporary techniques) because they still have egregious and noticeable failure modes. And it's so trivial to make this type of forecast that there is open source software you can easily run to do it [1]. [1]: https://pysteps.github.io/ https://pysteps.github.io/
    • imp0cat 2y ago
• cameldrv 2y ago
  On a related note, I had to stop using the Apple weather app because it doesn’t even get the current temperature right at my house. Right now, Apple weather is saying it’s 61 degrees and Weather Underground is saying 72.
  • metabagel 2y ago
    Exactly. It’s junk. It can’t even accurately report the current weather.
• ricardobayes 2y ago
  I have never used Dark Sky, although I have to say the Apple Weather app is one of the best I've seen so far (for my area). It works really well and it can often tell weather changes down to the minute.
• jgrahamc 2y ago
  I miss Dark Sky a lot and Apple totally screwed it up. I sponsor the Pirate Weather (https://pirateweather.net/ https://pirateweather.net/) project which duplicates the Dark Sky API and used it to make my own display: https://blog.jgc.org/2023/04/a-personal-weather-picture-using.html https://blog.jgc.org/2023/04/a-personal-weather-picture-usin... Pirate Weather is the backend for the Dark Sky-like Merry Sky: https://merrysky.net/ https://merrysky.net/
• webel0 2y ago
  Are there any comparisons of weather apps by area? For example, "for the San Francisco bay area, apple weather is most accurate on rain. But for NYC accuweather is better." I suppose you ought to be comparing weather APIs rather than apps but it would be most usable if you just knew which app to download.
  • smkelly 2y ago
    Not really apps, but here's a tool that can do it by forecast data source: https://www.forecastadvisor.com https://www.forecastadvisor.com
• g_sch 2y ago
  The feature I miss most about Dark Sky was that it allowed you to visualize changes in dew point throughout the day. Where I live (US East Coast), the weather can feel dramatically different depending on the humidity. Relative Humidity has always felt to me like a poor way of measuring how humid the weather will feel. For example, 50% RH at 84ºF will feel lightly humid and generally pleasant, whereas 50% RH at at 97ºF will feel like a swamp. The dew points at those respective points - 63ºF and 75ºF - do a much better job at immediately conveying how humid the air will feel. Dark Sky used to show hourly dew point graphs that you could browse throughout the week and see when the humidity would break (or return). Apple Weather does show you the dew point, but only when you select a point on the RH graph. So to track the dew point over the coming week, you basically need to drag your finger over each day's graph and observe the changing numbers. I think this is probably just due to the lack of general awareness about how dew point is a more elegant shorthand for "absolute humidity" than any other weather metric currently in use. I hope there will be more of us in the future!
  • jachee 2y ago
    Relative Humidity is directly tied to the dew point. Take a look back at the humidity forecast and look right under the humidity percentage. The dew point is there. If you tap a point in the future on the graph of forecast changes, the dew point is also registered there.
    • g_sch 2y ago
      Yes, but what I'd really like to see is a visual graph of the dew point over the course of a day. The graph currently only shows RH%, and the only way to see how the dew point will change over the course of a day is to drag your finger over the RH% graph and watch the dew point number change.
    • Leftium 2y ago
      - Relative humidity is also directly tied to the current temperature. (Warmer air can hold more moisture.) - The dew point is independent from the temperature, so it is effectively a measure of "absolute humidity." - While both measurements have their advantages, I find dew point a better indicator of the "mugginess." Also it is easier to estimate the relative humidity given the dew point vs. estimate the dew point given the relative humidity. - You can compare both here: https://weather-sense.leftium.com https://weather-sense.leftium.com (humidity plot disabled, but the value can be checked by hovering.)
• jp191919 2y ago
  I used to love Dark Sky on android. Finally settled on a using a combination of Breezy Weather and Flowx
• NelsonMinar 2y ago
  I find it wild that no one has fully replaced Dark Sky, ideally with an outright clone. Both the visualization and the unique "it's about to rain where you are" prediction system. I've tried a lot of clones of the latter and none work nearly as well. These days I go to windy.com for my weather nerd needs but it's quite different from Dark Sky.
  • ryukoposting 2y ago
    The default weather app on my Samsung phone looks an awful lot like Apple's default weather app, but it has a line graph below the hourly temperatures. I check it a couple times a day, and it's good enough for my needs. My bar's pretty low, though. The weather is rather unpredictable where I live; IME there's really no such thing as an accurate hourly forecast more than ~12 hours out. On Sunday night, today's forecast showed heavy rain and thunderstorms. Currently, it's 85 and there isn't a cloud in the sky. No amount of good dataviz can make up for that. If you lived somewhere where you might take weather forecast accuracy for granted, I can see why you'd hate Samsung's app. It does the 24-hour hourly forecast and the 10-day daily summary just fine, but that's it. It'll show you current air quality and humidity, but no forecast data for those. Also, if you tap anything to see more details, it just launches an AccuWeather web page.
  • Stephen304 2y ago
    I've been using briefsky which is similar to merrysky but open source. Both use pirate weather which is a recreation of the dark sky API. It's not as accurate (and I sometimes also switch briefsky to the tomorrow.io API) but it gives me that familiar UI and fills the role well enough for now.
• PaulHoule 2y ago
  it is so important that somebody stands up to apple fanboization and points out that their UI design is mediocre at best.
• ck2 2y ago
  I actually like the weather gov format, it's how my brain works put your lat/lon on the end (google HQ) https://forecast.weather.gov/MapClick.php?FcstType=graphical&textField1=37.4133&textField2=-122.1638 https://forecast.weather.gov/MapClick.php?FcstType=graphical... (amazon HQ) https://forecast.weather.gov/MapClick.php?FcstType=graphical&textField1=47.6085&textField2=-122.5049 https://forecast.weather.gov/MapClick.php?FcstType=graphical... The data is open/free, you can pull down the raw data and make it look however you want. I just wish there was an easy website to get Google's new AI weather which supposedly is far more accurate (only on certain android builds?)
• renewiltord 2y ago
  I don't get it. What is the irreplaceable part? You're all software engineers. Why don't you just write the software you're missing? I'd do it but I know I don't care about the weather like this. I just ask my voice assistant in broad terms. So I would suck at building it. But you guys all care. Why is it non replicable?
• antisthenes 2y ago
  So why not replicate it? Dark Sky is basically just fancy visualization for csv/json data from a weather API.
  • fkyoureadthedoc 2y ago
    To challenge Dark Sky they have to beat nostalgia, not reality. The default weather app is probably good enough for most people.
• nirav72 2y ago
  Dark Sky was incredible. I could time my out door activity like going for a run or do yard work based on its real time rain alerts down to the minute or two. Haven't found anything that accurate for forecasting. I was really hoping Apple would've merged some of that into their own IOS weather app. But it never happened.
• joshe 2y ago
  I dearly wish Apple would just publish Dark Sky again. Let the Weather app be whatever super clean design hero you want, just give us back this perfect information dense weather app to use day to day. There have to be dozens of devs in apple who would love to be on the 1-2 person team it would take to maintain it. (It was a 2 person startup for years, don't come at me with how hard stuff is.) It could even be a reward for good service, "ok you successfully mucked around with weird EU privacy law in the health app for 2 years, instead of a sabbatical for therapy how about you get to work on Dark Sky for a year?"
  • voidfunc 2y ago
    Somewhere in Cupertino an Apple UX engineer is furrowing their brow at you. How dare you want information!
    • deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
  • dwaite 2y ago
    What good would that be without the information backing it? (The DarkSky API server) And if that information does still exist in the (public) Apple Weather API, why hasn't anyone (not just some Apple Engineer) just created an app with the views people care about?
• zombiwoof 2y ago
  Here me out: Dark Sky amazingness is why we need to get rid of these tech monopolies None of this amazing innovation comes from big companies Now it’s swallowed up, resting and vesting
• akeck 2y ago
  My "favorite" behavior on the new post-DarkSky Weather app is that each of the phones in the house give different info re the weather directly outside. The worst is my child's phone which has its language set to Mandarin (the only substantive difference between their phone and our phones). Their Weather app is usually way off from our phones. None of the phones match the info given by NWS.
• ak217 2y ago
  I've never used Dark Sky, but the most innovative weather app/site I've used is definitely Weather Underground. Their radar and 10-day view are second to none. It does sound like Dark Sky had one useful feature that has no match - analyzing weather radar and sending personalized rain alert push notifications based on your location. That's pretty awesome.
• ilrwbwrkhv 2y ago
  This is why I have said recently and have gotten massive downvotes: do not sell your company and "exit". The world will become a much better place if you do not plan for an exit, but plan to make a better world.
• tomaskafka 2y ago
  I love data visualization and run https://weathergraph.app https://weathergraph.app - an iOS/Apple watch/mac app that people often praise for getting many weather metrics into one view. Dew point is surprisingly underrated metric that strongly affects how the weather feels like. It also has a ‘Dark Sky emulation’ mode for everyone who loved the now defunct app. I use Foreca, which consistently ranks among top 3 services on forecastadvisor.com, and Pirate Weather & Open-Meteo, which are two awesome indie services that access and enrich the best public models. Here is how it looks like: https://imgur.com/gallery/Rduy7qc https://imgur.com/gallery/Rduy7qc
  • user_7832 2y ago
    I just installed your app, and it certainly looks nice. Is there no way to use the app (with free data sources) at your own location? Right now it appears to choose a random demo location. It’s a pity because I don’t use weather apps that much to justify spending money but I appreciate the app nonetheless.
    • tomaskafka 2y ago
      Hi, that’s currently right - I am iterating on this, and I might bring back the free mode with limited customization instead of demo location with everything. Thanks for the feedback!
• fiforpg 2y ago
  Just as the author of this blog, I found Dark Sky UI uniquely concise and informative. I managed to somewhat replace it with not one, but two apps (on Android): - OpenWeather for a dense, one-page view of short-term upcoming conditions (temperature, precipitation) and the weekly forecast. - Shadow Weather for extra details: cloud cover, wind directions, etc.
• egypturnash 2y ago
  When Apple killed Dark Sky, I ended up with Weather Strip. It does a really good job of giving me the same amount of information density. Possibly even better - one fairly readable graph combines rain probability, temperature, cloudiness, and estimated inches of rain into a single glance. https://www.weatherstrip.app https://www.weatherstrip.app
  • dotancohen 2y ago
    That looks absolutely terrific. Does anybody know an Android equivalent?
  • eddyg 2y ago
    There’s also WeatherGraph: https://weathergraph.app/ https://weathergraph.app/
• chmaynard 2y ago
  Why is everyone blaming Apple? Your anger should be directed at the authors, who sold their proprietary software and reaped the benefits. This is the dream of most startup entrepreneurs. I'm sure they are quite happy about what happened.
• webwielder2 2y ago
  Why do people care about checking the weather in detail so much? Tomorrow it will probably be like today, unless it does/does not precipitate.
• adammarples 2y ago
  Side note but I've downloaded and tried 10-15 weather apps this week. All I want to do is see the weather for the rest of the day, and then the rest of the week. None of them can really do it. The best ones can give you a few hours of the day (horizontal) and then a couple of days (vertical) (why the format change?). All of them completely waste all of their screen space with useless things like one gigantic temperature icon or just pictures of clouds. Invariably they have all the data you need but it's not considered important enough to put on the screen and you have to scroll.
• TobTobXX 2y ago
  In Switzerland, many people use the government-develpped weather app (MeteoSwiss). It havs very similar visualizations like DarkSky it seems. They also have a web interface, if you want to check it out, though the app is better: https://www.meteoschweiz.admin.ch/lokalprognose/zuerich/8001.html#forecast-tab=weekly-overview https://www.meteoschweiz.admin.ch/lokalprognose/zuerich/8001...
• reportgunner 2y ago
  I've been using Klara for years, I especially like the detailed daily forecast that shows hourly weather.