
Apple acquires Dark Sky - LittleAthena
https://blog.darksky.net/dark-sky-has-a-new-home/
======
untog
Sigh.

I mean, congratulations to the founders of Dark Sky. It’s a wonderful app and
they deserve all the money they’ll get from this and they deserve a lot of
credit for not selling user data when almost every other weather app does. But
shutting down the API and Android apps feels like an egregious move by Apple.

And I hope we actually see a good improvement to the Apple weather app as a
result of this. I remember a few years ago Apple bought a fantastic public
transit app (Embark?), shut it down and I still don’t think their Maps app
comes close to the original transit app.

Vaguely topical thought: I wonder if we’re going to see a lot more of this. A
large economic downturn means a lot of small, independent companies will
struggle to survive. Being swallowed by a megacorp might be one of the few
ways to keep something alive.

~~~
notthemessiah
> I remember a few years ago Apple bought a fantastic public transit app
> (Embark?), shut it down and I still don’t think their Maps app comes close
> to the original transit app.

When Edwin Howard Armstrong invented FM radio, he was working for RCA, which
had everything invested in AM radio, an incompatible technology. RCA chose not
to invest, and used their political clout to lobby the FCC to cripple FM
radio, and their lawyers to drive Armstrong into debt in a protracted legal
battle. This drove Armstrong to suicide by defenestration. For companies like
Apple, these acquisitions are more about killing competition than they are
about improving their own services or user interfaces.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edwin_Howard_Armstrong](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edwin_Howard_Armstrong)
[http://www.free-culture.cc/](http://www.free-culture.cc/)

~~~
realityking
I don't know. How's Dark Sky competing with Apple? I don't think they derive
much, if any, revenue from the Weather app. More likely they're paying for the
data.

~~~
fooey
Maybe this is the start of the Epic Games business model.

Buy things and make them exclusive just so no one else can have them.

~~~
yepthatsreality
E^3 model[0], different parameters.

[0]
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend,_and_extingu...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend,_and_extinguish)

~~~
madeofpalk
I mean in Epic's case, its really more like movie/tv/book deals, except with
much more favourable terms to the creators.

~~~
timzentu
You forgot to add with more restrictions, decreased customer satisfaction,
upsetting early supporters, and an incomplete storefront that barely has
enough online features to state it was built in the last 2 decades.

That is in the case of Epic not the OP.

------
kyledrake
> Android and Wear OS App

> The app will no longer be available for download. Service to existing users
> and subscribers will continue until July 1, 2020, at which point the app
> will be shut down. Subscribers who are still active at that time will
> receive a refund.

IBM bought the Weather Underground app and ruined it, and now Dark Sky was
bought by Apple and they're ruining that too. Now I will have zero good
weather apps for Android. Just so Apple can flex on Google, even though I was
a paying customer for both. During a major pandemic when public services are
heavily reduced and poor access to good weather apps could put people in
danger.

Extremely disgusting and extremely horrible. Always feels great to know that
my reward for supporting startups is to be cannon fodder to rounding errors at
major corporations.

~~~
sandyarmstrong
I cannot begin to say how much IBM ruined Weather Underground. The app was
_perfect_! I was thrilled to pay for it.

Now it's probably the worst app on my phone and I should just delete it. It
takes forever to start, more than half the time it loads no data, and even if
it is loaded the UI redesign has made the whole thing slow and useless.

Would love suggestions for another app on Android.

~~~
minimalist
Restating a comment from about a year ago[0]:

If you are in the United States, nothing beats getting the forecast straight
from the horses mouth (NWS that is). Some companies are notorious for
producing 30+ day forecasts, which can't have any meaningful levels of skill.

NOAA/NWS should just create their own mobile application. I use Wx[1], which
parses NWS data directly and can be found on f-droid[2] and g---le play.

Granted, Wx doesn't follow Material Design for Android in the slightest, but I
like it that way because it's very information-dense, snappy, and light
(unlike r--ct "native" and other JS toolkits out there).

[0]:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19775291](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19775291)

[1]: [https://gitlab.com/joshua.tee/wx](https://gitlab.com/joshua.tee/wx)

[2]:
[https://f-droid.org/en/packages/joshuatee.wx/](https://f-droid.org/en/packages/joshuatee.wx/)

~~~
kingbirdy
Why do you feel the need to censor the words Google and React?

------
joncp
Let's not forget that, at least in the US, weather data is publicly funded and
excellent forecasts are available at a very granular level. For example,
here's the weather at Apple Park:
[https://forecast.weather.gov/MapClick.php?lon=-122.009263237...](https://forecast.weather.gov/MapClick.php?lon=-122.009263237495&lat=37.336696137840946)

... And here's the graph for up-to-the-minute detail:
[https://forecast.weather.gov/MapClick.php?lat=37.3367&lon=-1...](https://forecast.weather.gov/MapClick.php?lat=37.3367&lon=-122.0093&unit=0&lg=english&FcstType=graphical)

It ain't pretty, but it works and you've already paid for it.

~~~
ryandvm
> It ain't pretty, but it works and you've already paid for it.

I've been following the public weather data scene for a long time and I'm
pretty sure that UX for all the NOAA/NWS web sites is horrible by design, so
to speak.

After all, there are plenty of well designed .gov sites (e.g.
[https://recreation.gov/](https://recreation.gov/)), but just try browsing
around weather.gov for a few minutes. It's horrible. I mean, the data is top-
notch and it technically works, but the experience is awful. Weather.gov has
had the exact same site for at least a decade.

This is completely speculative, but I would not be surprised to find a link
between campaign contributions from the likes of the The Weather Channel and
the decision to completely underfund the web development teams at NWS. Nothing
else explains why some of the United States most valuable public data is
presented on a web site barely more functional than Craigslist.

~~~
kevin_thibedeau
The stagnation of the public NOAA site is mostly AccuWeather's doing.

The local radar maps still use flash for loop animation so they're going to
have to do something in the next year to keep that going.

[https://radar.weather.gov/radar.php?rid=DIX&product=NCR&over...](https://radar.weather.gov/radar.php?rid=DIX&product=NCR&overlay=11101111&loop=yes)

~~~
spsful
What did AccuWeather do?

~~~
kevin_thibedeau
They lobbied to prevent open access to tax payer funded data. NOAA is
intentionally underfunded to prevent them from making a modern site as a
compromise.

------
DiabloD3
As an Android user that uses Dark Sky: Fuck you.

Everyone else is congratulating the team on a job well done, I'm not. I rely
on Dark Sky because there are no better services, and it is a service I pay
for.

Now I'm going to have to switch to some second rate weather app that can't
predict the weather worth a damn because it just regurgitates the NWS.

God fucking damnit.

~~~
beart
yes I agree. It may sound extreme but this small decision has actually turned
me off from ever purchasing an apple product again (I do own an iPhone now but
don't frequently use it. There is just no consumer friendly reason possible to
shut the Android app off.

~~~
saym
Especially because it's not the default weather app on any Android device.
Users have to seek it out. They're not punishing every android user, just the
ones that have already supported the application they've purchased.

It's spiteful.

------
geddy
> Our API service for existing customers is not changing today, but we will no
> longer accept new signups. The API will continue to function through the end
> of 2021.

And yet another functional API shut down and privatized. This is the way of
the web now, a few companies owning the data, and nothing cool left to mess
around with.

I can't be the only one who has noticed this trend happening for years. You
used to be able to scroll to the footer of practically any service and find an
API link. No more.

~~~
JumpCrisscross
> _a few companies owning the data_

The data are public [1]. Dark Sky _et al_ process and repackage those data,
along with their own analytics and UI.

[1] [https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/cdo-
web/webservices/v2](https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/cdo-web/webservices/v2)

~~~
kevindong
As someone that's tried using the weather.gov API, let me just say it's
atrociously bad. I'm sure the data is accurate and all, but the API is
actively hostile towards developers.

~~~
ddevault
The API does not seem that bad at all. Maybe it's been improved?

[https://www.weather.gov/documentation/services-web-
api](https://www.weather.gov/documentation/services-web-api)

You can turn lat/long into a grid point:

[https://api.weather.gov/points/39.7456,-97.0892](https://api.weather.gov/points/39.7456,-97.0892)

Then a grid point into a forecast:

[https://api.weather.gov/gridpoints/TOP/31,80/forecast](https://api.weather.gov/gridpoints/TOP/31,80/forecast)

If you have your own GIS you can presumably store the grid points yourself.

~~~
kevindong
If you don't have precipitation data, then I would agree that it's fine. Their
hourly forecast data is quite friendly.

But I wanted precipitation data so I had to use this endpoint:
[https://api.weather.gov/gridpoints/TOP/31,80](https://api.weather.gov/gridpoints/TOP/31,80)

That endpoint groups hour-by-hour forecasts (see below) together to
deduplicate data, but it makes it very painful to parse. For instance,
"2020-03-31T15:00:00+00:00/PT4H" means that value is valid for 4 hours
beginning at 2020-03-31T15:00:00+00:00. The durations varied from time
interval to time interval and it made it super annoying to parse through.

{ "validTime": "2020-03-31T15:00:00+00:00/PT4H", "value": 0 }, { "validTime":
"2020-03-31T19:00:00+00:00/PT1H", "value": 2 }, { "validTime":
"2020-03-31T20:00:00+00:00/PT3H", "value": 4 },

------
dguo
"We’re thrilled to have the opportunity to reach far more people, with far
more impact, than we ever could alone."

I generally don't mind "our incredible journey" posts that much, but I wonder
how much mental gymnastics you need to justify that statement when you're
shutting down platforms.

Congrats to the Dark Sky team though. I've enjoyed using it. Time to look for
a replacement as I only use the Android app and website. At this point, I'm
tempted to see what I can build for myself with government provided APIs:
[https://www.weather.gov/documentation/services-web-
api](https://www.weather.gov/documentation/services-web-api)

~~~
joeblau
If  shuts down the 1M+ (less than 5M) Google[1] accounts and then this
weather app becomes the default system backing Siri, there will be a lot more
users than the Google Play store users Dark Sky is losing.

Right now, Apple's weather is backed by Yahoo! so my guess is that Yahoo! is
going away and all 1 billion  devices will now be using Dark Sky.

[1] -
[https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=net.darksky.da...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=net.darksky.darksky&hl=en_US)

~~~
teddyh
Wait, so HN normally filters the more odd Unicode characters, but _does not_
filter codes from the Private Use Area?



Note: Since this is the _Private Use_ area, the character you used does not
display the same on every device. In my browswer, it displays as a box
containing “F8FF”; if I copy it to a nearby terminal window, it shows up as
“(t)”. According to the ConScript (unofficial) Unicode Registry for private
use characters¹, the character you used is the “KLINGON MUMMIFICATION GLYPH”.
I assume that you meant to display some sort of Apple logo? ‭

1\.
[http://www.evertype.com/standards/csur/klingon.html](http://www.evertype.com/standards/csur/klingon.html)

~~~
outworlder
It renders as the Apple logo on Apple devices, yes.

Although a Klingon Mummification Glyph sounds much more awesome.

------
mrrsm
> 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.

I don't understand how being acquired by Apple helps further that goal.
Removing support for non-Apple devices seems to drastically lower the number
of people who you are helping.

I am interested in seeing what happens to this service moving forward as it
sounds like the API may be closed off completely by 2021 as well.

~~~
jdminhbg
> I don't understand how being acquired by Apple helps further that goal.
> Removing support for non-Apple devices seems to drastically lower the number
> of people who you are helping.

I would imagine that DarkSky will become the basis for the default weather
apps in iOS and macOS, and the number of people who use those defaults is
drastically higher than the number of people who use DarkSky iOS/Android as a
third-party app. The total addressable market shrinks, but the functional
number of users increases.

~~~
Aneurysm9_
That thoroughly misses the point. They could do both. There is zero reason to
shrink the addressable market other than Apple not wanting to play with
others.

~~~
atonse
We may not agree (and I don't agree with Apple's move here) but it's hardly
surprising that they would shut it down for their direct competitor platform.

~~~
adambyrtek
Let's not forget that it is/was a paid subscription on Android, so offering it
for free on iOS and keeping paid on Android would still give them a
significant edge. Somebody else in this thread mentioned that Shazam is still
available on Android even after the acquisition, so it's definitely not as
obvious as you suggest.

~~~
atonse
Correct, and Apple Music and Apple TV are available on all platforms too. But
both bring tens of millions of paid subscribers.

While I don't know what Dark Sky's paid base is, it's probably way smaller
than that.

~~~
jdminhbg
Not only that, but presumably if Dark Sky becomes the base for the iOS default
Weather app, then there won't be a DS standalone iOS app. So they wouldn't
just be maintaining a port, it would be an entire Android app with no iOS
equivalent.

~~~
filoleg
I mean, they could just simply release it as a new Apple Weather app on
Android. Just like they did with Apple Music.

------
pyrophane
I get that these dumb acquisition blog-posts are practically lifted from a
template and hardly mean anything, but please don't tell me that your goal is
to "to help as many people as we can stay dry and safe" in practically the
same breath that you announce you are killing the app on the world's most
popular mobile platform.

~~~
eli
But presumably will instead be pre-installed on the second most popular mobile
platform.

~~~
RosanaAnaDana
>Pre-installed and probably impossible to remove.

Thanks for nothing creators of Dark Sky.

~~~
eli
So the same as the existing Weather app?

~~~
nxc18
Weather app is not impossible to remove and hasn't been for a long time.

source: I just deleted mine

~~~
eli
Is there any reason to think a Dark Sky powered Apple Weather app will work
differently?

------
johnl1479
> Android and Wear OS App

> The app will no longer be available for download. Service to existing users
> and subscribers will continue until July 1, 2020, at which point the app
> will be shut down. Subscribers who are still active at that time will
> receive a refund.

I understand that Apple has no obligation to support a platform that is not
their own, but this really hurts to hear after using Dark Sky on Android and
the API for _years_

~~~
georgyo
I agree, this seems like a cheap shot with no actual benefit.

~~~
dmos62
It's important to acknowledge that there is a benefit: Apple products' value
increases in relation to other platforms' when they introduce more exclusive
offerings. The right to do this without repercussions is hurting IT. Big IT
business is rife with anti-competitive crap that noone should put up with.

~~~
jaywalk
You really think Apple (or anyone else) should be forced to support software
on a competing platform? That's absurd.

It's a crappy decision on their part, no doubt. But saying it should be
_illegal_ is way out of line.

~~~
dmos62
You can always come up with a ludicrous policy; it doesn't detract from the
potential of regulation. Would you accept General Motors buying freeways and
not allowing others' platforms on it? Competition must be regulated.

Also, isn't the barrier between iOS and Android devices artificial? I don't
see a veritable technical reason why the two platforms can't be compatible.

~~~
jaywalk
> Also, isn't the barrier between iOS and Android devices artificial?

No, not even remotely. They are completely different operating systems.

~~~
dmos62
Not processors though, right? OSX and Windows are distinct as well, but Web
apps are portable. The main reason why there isn't an analogue native standard
is that the economics incentivize walled gardens.

~~~
jaywalk
Web apps are not actually "applications" in the sense we're talking about here
and are wholly irrelevant.

~~~
dmos62
Sounds more like they're not helping your argument.

------
c0nsumer
This is really, really disappointing. I've been pretty critical of Dark Sky at
times for being mediocre for more than maybe 12 hours out, but for very short
term forecasts it worked great. I spent a fair amount of time outdoors and
getting a 30 minute heads-up for "drizzle" versus "heavy rain" was excellent
and really let me time how long to stay outside for.

I'd really, really like a replacement on Android. While Wunderground could be
it, it's unfortunately not. The app is heavy and crappy and ad-laden and
weirdly non-nonsensical.

~~~
farisjarrah
Windy is really great and they seem to try to foster a great community. They
have weather apps for android or ios

[https://www.windy.com/](https://www.windy.com/)

~~~
mrrsm
Thanks for the suggestion, at first glance things look pretty nice. Hopefully
their mobile app is as nice as their website.

~~~
noxiousz
Their mobile app is amazing it's basically a clone of the website so all the
features are on the app as well.

------
minimaxir
Shutting down Android functionality is interesting since Apple did not do that
for the Shazam acquisition in 2018 (the PR for that doesn't mention Android at
all: [https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2018/09/apple-acquires-
shazam...](https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2018/09/apple-acquires-shazam-
offering-more-ways-to-discover-and-enjoy-music/))

In fact, Apple has released more apps for Android such as Apple Music in
recent years.

~~~
abrowne
The difference I think is the scale and name recognition of Shazam and wanting
to get new customers via Apple Music. They can even say something like "with
an iPhone you don't even need an app for Shazam, you can just use Siri", but
that works better if non-Apple users know what Shazam is. while this they will
probably retire to be used as the nameless backend to the default weather app.

~~~
divbzero
Still, killing DarkSky on Android seems to offer little gain while hurting
DarkSky supporters and generating ill will. I hope Apple and DarkSky can
reconsider this decision.

------
StavrosK
"We have always been committed to bringing you accurate, timely weather
forecasts, and our acquisition by Apple will help us further that goal more
than ever, principally by look how much money I made oh my God that's an
obscene amount that's sitting in my bank account right now, for that much
money I can almost believe this is best for users wow"

------
KMuncie
Just a dirty move to shove aside all of us paying Android users. Was going to
look at going back to Apple for my next phone but this just brought my opinion
of Apple business practices back down to the garbage heap.

I am disappointed in the founders for letting that be a part of the
acquisition.

~~~
entangledqubit
As a paying Dark Sky user on Android, this is very disappointing. I'm extra
disappointed since I was under the illusion that Dark Sky was more of a public
service entity than a take-the-money-and-run startup. I'll do better due
diligence before buying in the future.

I'll be filing this story under the general theme: rich company distorts
genuine social impact rewards and ends up making people poorer in aggregate.
Sadly this just seems normal these days...

------
thisisbrians
Myself and a few fellow HNers are interested in discussing building an open
source alternative to Dark Sky's API. I will have to find/build something that
meets this need for my business (bractlet.com), anyway.

If you are interested in helping contribute in any way (by coding, providing
requirements, etc.), or just want to lurk, please email me:
`brian${'at'}bractlet${'dot'}com`

I'll get us into a discussion forum of some sort so we can confer.

I would clarify that I'm _mostly_ interested in weather data for the United
States right now, but am certainly not limiting this effort based on that.

------
windyaskew
> Our goal has always been to provide the world with the best weather
> information possible

Sounds like they gave up on their goal or changed the definition of "the
world" to 13% [1] of smartphone users.

I always loved Dark Sky as an Android user, guess I'll find something else.

[1] [https://www.idc.com/promo/smartphone-market-
share/os](https://www.idc.com/promo/smartphone-market-share/os)

~~~
alephnan
Seems like many corporations, executives, politicians are blatantly
contradicting themselves in the past few weeks

------
tonyztan
> "Android and Wear OS App"

> "The app will no longer be available for download. Service to existing users
> and subscribers will continue until July 1, 2020, at which point the app
> will be shut down. Subscribers who are still active at that time will
> receive a refund."

That's unfortunate. I have been using it for years. Any recommended
alternatives?

~~~
Larrikin
This is awful, atleast they are offering a refund but there is no point they
couldn't just maintain the Android app

~~~
askafriend
Focus is likely the reason they don't want to do it.

Just because you can, doesn't mean you should.

~~~
Larrikin
Every other company maintains two apps, here there is already an existing app.

------
MrGilbert
I'm sure this move will break a lot of smart homes. The Dark Sky API was
pretty popular among HomeAssistant users (myself included). So I'll have to
figure out how to work with the data from DWD (German weather service). I'm
pretty sure they won't get aquired by <insert any big company here>.

------
vikramkr
This seems like the type of acquisition that would go unnoticed by the
authorities in terms of anti-monopoly regulations, but probably should be.
This is a less expensive way of building a moat than trying to merge with
samsung or the like, but bit by bit you can build a huge amount of lockin by
taking complementors to your competitors off the market.

~~~
scarface74
So what would be the difference if Apple just built all the features of Dark
Sky into the default Weather app and crushed Dark Sky leaving them with no
market?

And as far as they would still have Android, we all know that the Android
market isn’t nearly as profitable for app developers as the iOS market. They
wouldn’t have received any money. Why would you want the government to tell
developers who you could sell your property to? How would that affect the
entire startup ecosystem? Would investors only want to invest money on
companies that could go public? Especially seeing that for example only two YC
backed companies have ever gone public.

Also, if the government did stop Apple from acquiring Dark Sky, are they also
going to stop Apple from hiring the developers, the developers let their app
rot and Apple still has them to integrate the best features of Dark Sky into
the Weather app?

I’m always amazed at how willing people on HN are to give up their freedom and
independence to the government.

~~~
vikramkr
I didn't impute that the anti-monopoly regulations are necessarily a good
thing or a desirable thing. Just that, if you want to stop monopolies, you're
overlooking one of the most powerful ways that they can get built. Anti-
monopoly regulations should be investigating this, but they don't. Whether or
not we should have anti-monopoly regulations is a different question (and I
don't think monopolies are a moral evil inherently and are if anything
essential in some areas to drive innovation) But if you want to fight
monopolies, you need to be looking at things like this.

~~~
dnh44
Apple doesn’t have a monopoly in anything so why would anti-trust regulations
apply?

~~~
vikramkr
The idea is to prevent monopolies before they happen. If antitrust gets
involved in a merger they dont want to let the merger happen and then reverse
it, the idea is to prevent the merger from happening in the first place

~~~
dnh44
Apple isn’t close to having a monopoly in anything. So there isn’t any action
that regulators could block which would prevent a monopoly.

Also all the markets that Apple are involved in are highly competitive.
Computers, mobile phones, tablets, video/music streaming, credit cards, online
payments, and headphones are all highly competitive with healthy competition.

Additionally when Apple enters a new market they are normally increasing the
level of competition not reducing it, and that competition has often changed
the face of those industries. If anything Apple increases the health of
industries they enter.

Anti-trust regulations aren’t there to harm big companies, they are there to
promote the health of markets by increasing competitive pressure.

I’ll go out on a limb now and speculate that the existence of Apple has made
the use of anti-trust regulations less likely or necessary in the markets
where it is active in.

If Apple had a monopoly in mobile phones and they used that monopoly to try
and create a monopoly in headphones then I could understand the call for
bringing in the regulators. But the current situation is nowhere near that.
You can even buy Bose headphones in Apple stores.

------
ogre_codes
As an Apple user, it's always a bit bittersweet seeing announcements like
this. It often means we'll see some nice upgrades to Apple services, but I
feel bad for the non-Apple consumers of this info. It's not just Android, but
3rd party iOS apps benefit from the Dark Sky API as well (I use Carrot Weather
which uses it for some of their feeds). Aside from that, it's good to see a
great team get some well deserved rewards for their notoriously great product.
I just wish there were a better way for great devs to get rewarded.

~~~
morpheuskafka
It was only last year that Carrot lost access to the IBM Weather Underground
API, and now they will have to replace Dark Sky too.

I'm guessing a brand new Catalyst Weather app is coming in iOS 14.

------
rabboRubble
The really crummy part about the abandonment of the Android user base is that
Darksky-now-Apple's user base will lose the end-user weather reporting from
the Android user segment. Dark Sky would sometimes report rain instead of
snow, snow instead of rain, showers instead of downpours, etc. I could provide
feedback that the report was wrong, and how it was wrong.

~~~
xd1936
I did this too, but it always felt like shouting into the void. There was no
indication that that feature did anything except placebo.

~~~
rabboRubble
Optimistically, I hoped that the feedback helped improve the pinpoint weather
forecasting. Worst case, it functioned as a snow excitment button that I could
press.

------
ngngngng
What a shame. Dark Sky was the best option for me. I live in a small town that
shares a zip code with a larger neighboring town. Most weather apps report the
weather of the neighboring town, the big problem with that is that I live 2000
feet higher than the neighboring town, causing drastic weather differences.

Dark sky was the best I had found, but not perfect, nearly once a week I would
report the weather since Dark Sky reported that it was partly cloudy when
really it was snowing.

Unfortunately since I'm on Android, I'll have to find something else. It's a
shame since I've been paying for their upgraded service as long as I've had
the app.

~~~
xenocratus
Same here, Android user who really loved both their app and website. Must be
nice for them, getting burried in cash, though.

------
andrewla
I hope that someday we will have an anti-trust regime that scrutinizes this
kind of thing more carefully.

One of the main things I liked about Dark Sky was that they charged for their
app. They were good, people knew they were good and paid for it, so they had a
business model other than acquisition.

I guess there goes that. Wunderground was completely crippled after their
acquisition by the weather channel and became a useless heap of junk; looks
like it's Dark Sky's turn. Weather Underground was a great resource, but they
never got a funding model that really worked; their subscription-based "ad
removal" didn't really work for me.

------
adambyrtek
I'm sending an email to tell them how disappointed I feel as a long-time
subscriber about them maliciously (since there is no other more generous
explanation) shutting down the service for Android users:
[https://darksky.net/contact](https://darksky.net/contact)

~~~
airstrike
> since there is no other more generous explanation

How about "Apple just bought a really talented team of developers and want
them to work on the Next Big Thing at Apple rather than spend their time on a
product that doesn't do anything for Apple's strategy?"

~~~
adambyrtek
Sure, that's the classic "it's been a wonderful journey" scenario where the
whole product is sunset, but shutting down just a single platform is not as
obvious.

~~~
shadowoflight
One could easily argue that Apple is sunsetting the Android app for one of the
same reasons we can't install MacOS on a non-Apple PC (without violating the
EULA): Apple doesn't like supporting unpredictable platforms, and doesn't want
to be in a situation where people blame them for other people's bugs and
unexpected under-the-hood changes.

~~~
adambyrtek
Do you really believe that Apple doesn't allow macOS on PCs because of
"unpredictability"? I think it's pretty obvious by now that bundling is a
great way to differentiate their hardware, charge a premium, and lock users in
their ecosystem. Remember the people who complained about issues with the
butterfly keyboard, but kept buying Macbooks just because of macOS?

------
_delirium
Uh oh, DuckDuckGo has been using Dark Sky for its weather results for the past
year [1]. Wonder what they're going to replace it with once the API shuts
down?

[1] [https://spreadprivacy.com/duckduckgo-weather-
results/](https://spreadprivacy.com/duckduckgo-weather-results/)

~~~
snazz
DuckDuckGo already uses Apple Maps, so their relationship with Apple exists
today.

~~~
jolux
anyone can do that:
[https://developer.apple.com/documentation/mapkitjs](https://developer.apple.com/documentation/mapkitjs)

------
matthewmcg
Interesting that they just unilaterally state that your data is now subject to
Apple's privacy policy.

Checking the policy in effect before the acquisition[1], it seems they
disclosed the possibility of transferring data to an acquirer.

[1]
[https://web.archive.org/web/20200311172542/https://darksky.n...](https://web.archive.org/web/20200311172542/https://darksky.net/privacy)

~~~
saagarjha
This is sadly fairly standard verbiage for most privacy policies.

------
Abishek_Muthian
I used Dark Sky API for plotting weather (temperature) data against COVID-19
cases. Of the other weather API services, I found this to be most
comprehensive for historical weather data; although I doubt whether there is
any universal weather API which provides 'actual historical recorded weather
data' instead of forecasted data.

I emailed Dark Sky's sales team several weeks back reg API usage and didn't
receive any reply; I presumed it could be because of quarantine and didn't
follow it up. But, now I feel it could be because of the uncertainty from
their sale to Apple although the blog says that the API will function till the
end of 2021.

[1][https://abishekmuthian.com/covid-19-temperature-
correlation/](https://abishekmuthian.com/covid-19-temperature-correlation/)

------
nrki
Money talks, I guess.

One thing this doesn't do: incentivise me to buy an iPhone.

------
ecf
> Our API service for existing customers is not changing today, but we will no
> longer accept new signups. The API will continue to function through the end
> of 2021.

I believe this could be the main reason for the purchase. Apple is still using
The Weather Channel as the data source for their stock app. If you take a look
at their website you’ll soon realize they’ve jumped the ship and are
highlighting articles such as “Koalas rescued from Australia’s Bushfires
Return Home”.

It appears that The Weather Channel cares very little about showing the actual
weather, and switching to a higher quality data source that’s now in-house is
probably a really good idea.

~~~
bearcobra
The Weather Company (which no longer owns The Weather Channel) is part of IBM
and also owns WeatherUnderground which has a pretty extensive personal weather
station network. I'm skeptical that DarkSky's data is that much higher quality
even if weather.com is a mess.

------
gorkish
"Apple acquires" "Google acquires"

Shit like I need any more existential dread right now.

Wake me up when these phrases don't mean that a huge part of the company's
userbase gets fucked.

I don't know if this is any better than when they used to just clone 3rd party
killer apps (Sherlock). I guess it's more polite to hand over a big bag of
money first.

------
simonmales
The first version of Dark Sky was web application called forecast.io. This
sparked an interest in me that web apps can be beautiful and to the ordinary
user, look like an "app".

I feel they were one of the early adopters of the "PWA" mindset, before the
term was coined. Great blog post from 2013: It’s not a web app. It’s an app
you install from the web.
[https://web.archive.org/web/20161221014014/https://blog.dark...](https://web.archive.org/web/20161221014014/https://blog.darksky.net/its-
not-a-web-app-its-an-app-you-install-from-the-web/)

Secondly DuckDuckGo uses Dark Sky for its own weather information. I wonder
what the alternative will be now.

------
cjlm
This is (selfishly) disappointing as I just built my first Twitter bot[0]
using their API. At least it can be live in it's current form until EOY 2021.

[0] [https://twitter.com/EmojiWeatherVI](https://twitter.com/EmojiWeatherVI)

------
ProAm
Title should be 'Apple acquires DarkSky'

Everyone has a price.

------
adamfeldman
I'm currently exploring [https://www.climacell.co](https://www.climacell.co)
as a replacement for Dark Sky's API.

[https://www.climacell.co/blog/dark-sky-weather-api-
customers...](https://www.climacell.co/blog/dark-sky-weather-api-customers-
can-now-move-to-climacell-for-the-same-price)

They also offer consumer apps for Android and iOS. The apps' privacy policy
page is currently broken, I've asked them to fix it:
[https://www.climacell.co/legal/app-privacy-
policy](https://www.climacell.co/legal/app-privacy-policy)

------
ddevault
Well, this sucks.

Can you remember the last time you were happy to hear about an acquisition?
Have these ever been anything but negative in the past decade?

------
api_or_ipa
Very disappointed. I've been a Dark Sky API user since 2015. It's a huge
disappointment that a cash flush, closed ecosystem company is purchasing and
shutting down a unique data source for point prediction weather forecasts.

------
RosanaAnaDana
What a disappointment. I've been building off of this API on some personal
projects and now I can throw that away.

------
cnst
Dark Sky is a very nice implementation, but what makes them unique, actually?
They gather data from public sources, there's no user input to worry about
having to censor, there's no networking effect in order to make it useful.

It's basically a perfect candidate for a lifestyle project. How big is the
team? I'd gather the whole thing could be re-implemented (at least for a
single market like US and Canada) in a few months by a single competent
backend developer who knows a thing or two about UI/UX as well.

Anyone has any idea as to the purchase price?

~~~
Aldipower
The historical weather data is very unique! Everybody is talking about
forecasts, damn, I use Dark Sky to look back in the time. They aggregated this
data from a lot of sources over a very large time span and with very good
coverage. Nothing can compare to this. Nothing I know about..

~~~
cnst
Why would you need to look at historical data? I'm sure other places provide
it as well; it's available in the web-interface of AccuWeather and many other
services, too, for example.

~~~
Aldipower
AccuWeather provides only data for the day before. That is not very
historical. I need to fetch data from years in the past to assign it to dated
assets.

------
fooey
I'm very disappointed to see Apple consume and extinguish a great service.

~~~
floatingatoll
"Extinguish" assumes they have no intention to replace third-party data
harvesters with their own service.

Apple currently redirects their platforms' weather data HTTP requests to
third-party services like Weather.com, that are known for aggressively
marketing and reselling user data as a primary revenue stream.

Seems more likely they see this as a way to improve weather data for their
customers without seeing their customers' data abused for marketing and
tracking.

~~~
kevin_thibedeau
They could just get the weather data directly from the national bodies that
provide it. It's not like they were hurting for money to staff their own
weather division.

~~~
dsl
Companies like The Weather Channel (which owns weather.com) have been fighting
open access to government funded weather data. What you can get now lacks the
detail required to do serious predictions or building anything useful. Dark
Sky kinda found a workaround by processing radar imagery directly.

To your point, it looks like they just spent their money to staff a weather
division.

------
pietroppeter
Sad news. Their API was very good. What will be a good alternative with global
coverage and support for daily detail a few years in the past?

~~~
polymath21
Very sad indeed. I haven't found anything comparable with global coverage or
historical data support that's reasonably priced or has an easy to use self
serve UI.

------
Razengan
Regarding the people appearing to rage against Apple for dropping Android
support, claiming how this move turns them away from Apple etc., that's how
I've felt about Google since they took over YouTube and continued to gimp iPad
support for years (like refusing to support the native picture-in-picture
feature).

------
kube-system
Ugh. We just implemented a bunch of functionality using their API. Now we have
no path to production with any of it.

------
jamespetercook
I have an (unpopular) iOS app that consumes the Dark Sky API. Recently it hit
number 7 in the weather category, despite only having had 2 downloads in the
previous 23 days. I thought that was rather peculiar at the time and wondered
if Apple had intervened somehow, for some reason I couldn't understand.

------
somehnguy
I never would have imagined paying money for a weather app, but last year I
did just that by purchasing Dark Sky on iOS. It's just that much better than
other weather apps I've tried.

I hope the service continues to be the best in the business as far as accuracy
and ease of use goes. Congrats to the team as well.

------
root_axis
I can't help but feel like the character of this thread would have been much
more severe if it were google shutting out all iOS users from one of their
services. I do see a lot of ticked off android customers but a surprising lack
of "break up these big companies" rhetoric.

------
Aldipower
Oh no! C'est une catastrophe! Dark Sky was the API with affordable and
reliable _historical_ weather data, which my own app depends on. Looking for
an alternative will be hard, because there is none.. Damn! :( Monopoly at it's
best. Why the hell do they shutdown the API???

~~~
stubbedtoe
Same :( Darksky was excellent in that you could put any coordinates and any
date in the past and then it would give you hourly weather data. I also am
struggling to find an alternative.

------
c54
Wow really disappointed to see this, yet another great service gobbled up by a
massive corporation.

Yet another overly saccharine acquisition letter about there being no better
place for the tool than in the hands of one of the big tech companies.

Sorry for all android users to see yet another great app hit the dust.

------
sxg
Oh no! DarkSky.net was my first open source Swift project (back when it was
called ForecastIO)! I'm sad to see that the API seems to be going away next
year.

[https://github.com/sxg/forecastio](https://github.com/sxg/forecastio)

------
robbiemitchell
If you're looking for an alternative, try Weather Line. It has Dark Sky-like
features and so so much more. I have no connection to the company, just love
the product.

[http://weatherlineapp.com/](http://weatherlineapp.com/)

------
cryptoz
I wonder if they ever used their barometer data. After announcing collection
of barometric pressure from devices years ago, there was never an update.

FWIW I do this on Android in the US, expanding to iOS and internationally
soon:

[https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.allclearwe...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.allclearweather.android)

Am I the only one doing barometric pressure data research on Android now?
Maybe IBM does it, it's also hard to say.

The areas of research that Dark Sky did not follow through with are
disappointing. They seemed very focused on making math-statistics estimates of
forecasts and never doing the real hard science.

Maybe Apple will pick up the slack.

------
divbzero
I’ve been a big fan of Dark Sky ever since I discovered them through
DuckDuckGo. I’m disappointed to see the API closed to new users, hopeful that
they will become the default source for Apple weather apps, but most of all
happy for the Dark Sky founders.

------
dguest
The situation around weather apps really confuses me: my understanding is that
most weather predictions come from massive networks of weather stations and
very complicated and expensive simulation, both of which are publicly funded.
This information must be available via some public API.

Making an app is "just" providing an interface to this. I don't mean that
front end design is easy (as demonstrated by a lot of badly designed weather
apps), but it does mean that most apps should give you exactly the same
information.

With this in mind I just looked for a publicly funded app (so no adds, free)
and ended up with Yr. Am I missing something here?

------
post_break
Well this really sucks because I depend on that API. I am not happy about this
one bit.

------
greggman3
It sounds like Dark Sky might do this but I'm curious how often various
weather services check for correctness. I've seen the Apple Weather app (which
I know is based on a 3rd party) tell me it's sunny and clear when it's raining
outside more than once.

I also have this fiction that locally run weather services do better than
internationally run. My fiction is that weather.com doesn't care if the
weather is wrong in Japan or China or Africa they only care it's correct at
their offices because the people that work there unconsciously would only
notice when it's wrong in their area.

------
crazygringo
On the one hand, I'm very happy that Dark Sky functionality will presumably
become integrated with iOS's weather app. I love Dark Sky and have always
found it weird I have to use 2 different weather apps. (And I'm happy for the
founders for their $$$.)

On the other hand, I feel for Android/web users. Totally sucks to lose it.

Perhaps it will push Google to build similar functionality into the stock
Android weather app though? That's how competition is supposed to work, after
all.

The Dark Sky algorithm was always a super clever idea, but I'm not aware of
them having patented anything. So I don't see any barrier.

------
mortenjorck
It's a genuine shame that the API has to be shut down as part of the
transition. With Apple's pivot toward services, why couldn't a rebranded Apple
Weather API join the ranks of the Apple Maps API?

------
ogre_codes
As an Apple user, it's always a bit bittersweet seeing announcements like
this. It often means we'll see some nice upgrades to Apple services, but I
feel bad for the non-Apple consumers of this info. It's not just Android, but
3rd party iOS apps benefit from the Dark Sky API as well (I use Carrot Weather
which uses it for some of their feeds).

Aside from that, it's good to see a great team get some well deserved rewards
for their notoriously great product. I just wish there were a better way for
great devs to get rewarded.

------
mystcb
I mean, if true - I offer my congratulations to the Dark Sky founders and I
wish them the best of luck.

That said - part of me is wondering, it's April 1st tomorrow. Part of me is
REALLY hoping it is a joke too!

EDIT: Grammar!

~~~
kyledrake
It's a joke even if it's serious.

------
tomaskafka
Hello, weather app developer here
([https://wg.tomaskafka.com](https://wg.tomaskafka.com))

As multiple people speculated on reasons, I believe it is very simple - before
the acquisition, Apple didn't have weather data, and thus was forced to direct
their users to weather.com, which is a terrible, ad-infested (and probably
personal data harvesting) experience.

Don't forget, every weather provider gets hourly access to your real location,
which is very valuable.

Dark Sky acquisition fixes that.

------
joshstrange
I'm surprised I didn't see any comments about Weather Nerd [0]. I used to use
Dark Sky but switched to this for more (at least in my opinion) features. I've
been using it for a couple years and quite like it. It also has a "is it going
to rain in the next hour"-type feature I use a lot.

[0] [https://apps.apple.com/us/app/weather-
nerd/id958363882](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/weather-nerd/id958363882)

------
jakebasile
Losing the website sucks. I use it on my Mac since there is no Dark Sky macOS
app. Of course there's also no default Weather app on iPad.. I don't see that
changing either.

------
bonestamp2
Since Apple is trying to grow service revenue, I wonder why they're not
continuing to service API customers? It comes across as entirely anti-
competitive.

------
pwinnski
I use Dark Sky as my exclusive weather app, and I'm on iOS, so I suppose I
should be happy.

Somehow it just feels like too much in too few hands.

Congratulations to Adam Grossman, though.

------
ktosobcy
> 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

Congrats et al but above just plainly contradicts itself - "reach wider
audience"..."limit app only to apple".

I'm sad and furious at the same time :(

------
IanCal
> 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.

This is then followed by a list of services being shut down and access
limited.

Awful news for those of us who make a lot of use of the android app and api.

------
Krasnol
If you are in Germany, consider buying into the German Meteorological Service
(Deutscher Wetterdienst) apps instead.

[https://www.dwd.de/DE/leistungen/warnwetterapp/warnwetterapp...](https://www.dwd.de/DE/leistungen/warnwetterapp/warnwetterapp.html)

Also: they are free for member of emergency services.

------
macandcheese
Plug for Hello Weather - my favorite weather app - on iOS and Android. 4
sources (including Dark Sky), great UI, responsive devs, and affordable
subscription along with a generous free version -
[https://helloweatherapp.com/](https://helloweatherapp.com/) No affiliation,
just a happy customer.

------
skizm
Good alternatives for both API and mobile Apps?

~~~
chris_f
National Weather Service API. Drawback is it's only for the US though.

[https://www.weather.gov/documentation/services-web-
api](https://www.weather.gov/documentation/services-web-api)

~~~
jpjpmn
There are a number of global weather data providers in the world -
AerisWeather (quite functional, great mapping too), Accuweather (big network
but expensive and little instruction), OWM (not very full featured, more for
commodity weather), Climacell (robust network but not sure about their data
collection practices.)

------
LeoPanthera
The death of the API is terrible news. Wunderground shut down their API last
year when they were acquired by TWC/IBM. That means the only weather providers
with an API left are Foreca, ClimaCell, AccuWeather, Aeris, and MeteoGroup.

...and none of these are even vaguely as accurate (in the USA) as Dark Sky or
Wunderground. It's a real loss.

------
dhosek
I've been annoyed by every smartphone-based weather app. They treat
precipitation as a binary event (Dark Sky at least gives some indication of
intensity in the short-term forecast), but it's not terribly useful in a
Chicago winter to now know if ️ means flurries or stock up on canned goods.

------
Markoff
boo hoo, they won't let us use the least accurate source (outside US) anymore,
I'm crying...

>AccuWeather’s predictions were best for temperature averages and highs,
probability of precipitation and wind speed. The Weather Channel and Weather
Underground came top for low temperature predictions. Dark Sky came last in
all these categories.

[https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/jun/30/weather-f...](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/jun/30/weather-
forecast-apps-smartphone-predictions-forecasting?&ampcf=1)

do yourself a favor and on Android install Geometric weather (open source,
AccuWeather, simple layout), Today weather (more sources, quite nice looking),
Windy (great maps) or Weather M8 (many sources, require adblock)

~~~
cannam
This may be actually the first useful comment on this subject (including my
own!) - I know Windy well enough to know that for all its quality it's not a
direct replacement, but will be glad to have a look at the others. Thanks.

------
stevetursi
Apple making this exclusive to apple makes me _less likely_ to switch to apple
products. No app, including something as beloved as dark sky, is meaningful
enough to get me to switch platforms, but if I had any good will towards apple
it just went out the fucking window.

------
skyfaller
Is [https://openweathermap.org/](https://openweathermap.org/) useful as an
alternative? I haven’t seen it mentioned in discussions about replacing Dark
Sky, and I don’t know enough about the field to compare it.

------
greymeister
Ah, another reminder of Jason Scott's talk
[https://youtu.be/qh7EARxkxoU?list=PL7WR9B9eZNmxm8_LzP1Qf8xnN...](https://youtu.be/qh7EARxkxoU?list=PL7WR9B9eZNmxm8_LzP1Qf8xnN9crHRgNh&t=1873)

------
Urgo
This BETTER be an April Fools' Day joke. I've been using the android app with
a subscription for years. If its not a joke, anyone have a recommendation for
a replacement? The exact location rain data was my favorite feature.

------
jamesgeck0
This makes it sounds like the forecast won't be available on the website after
this summer? Actually kind of annoyed about this; it was great on desktop, and
a nice sort of demo version of the full app on mobile.

~~~
WWLink
Cue the Blizzard Doom guy saying "Do you guys not have phones?" as if that'd
get us to stop using our grandpa boxes.

I'm not sure what's so terrible about a website that they're desperate to drop
development on it. My guess is that juicy analytics data they get from the
mobile app.

Edit: Except of course, Apple was the one buying. So what the heck do they
stand to gain by killing the website?

------
stephenheron
Good for them but at the same time it is a shame for non Apple Users.

We use their embed widget quite heavily. Anyone know of any equivalents? I had
a quick Google but can't find anything that looks totally equal in feature
set.

------
mingli_yuan
You may check ColorfulClouds Weather API
[https://open.caiyunapp.com/ColorfulClouds_Weather_API](https://open.caiyunapp.com/ColorfulClouds_Weather_API)

------
yitchelle
Apple, Google, Amazon etc acquires companies all the time, but this one seems
to be a little bit special. For the layman like myself, I don't really
understand it. Can someone give a quick explanation?

~~~
cmauniada
My guess would be to integrate it into their own weather app. Darksky has
better forecasting than Apple's own weather app, which I believe is powered by
the weather network.

------
0xBA5ED
>We’re thrilled to have the opportunity to reach far more people, with far
more impact, than we ever could alone.

A few sentences later:

>The app will no longer be available for download [on android]

Can anyone recommend a good alternative?

------
mrfusion
I found dark sky to be uncannily accurate in DC. Predicting rainstorms to the
minute.

But in Florida it’s completely wrong about everything. Says clear sky’s when
it’s overcast. No clue about rain.

Any ideas why that would be?

------
Igelau
Here I was finally getting over the time they acquired Lala for the sole
purpose of murdering it. Now the good weather app on Android is heading for
the slaughter too. Screw you, Apple.

------
fooey
Disappointing to see Apple consume and extinguish a great service.

------
ghiculescu
Our SaaS product uses their API for a non-critical feature, I guess at some
point we'll have to find an alternative. Any suggestions? (Happy to be pitched
by competitors.)

------
Traster
Well... that's blatantly anticompetitive. There are two mobile platforms: iOS
and Android. The owner of iOS is buying apps and removing them from Android.
Wtf.

------
sorokod
_Android and Wear OS App

The app will no longer be available for download_

Good on them for the aqusition but please, easy on the "Our goal has always
been to provide the world ..." bullshit

------
m-p-3
> 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

Except those using Android.

------
matthewcanty
This is terrible news. I built a weather app with DarkSky API nearly 8 years
ago and have been using it ever since.

I really hope I’ll manage to find some alternative.

------
bozzcl
I just bought a subscription for this app two months ago.

Said subscription isn't showing up on the Play Store anymore... so how do I go
about getting a refund?

------
Paraesthetic
Removing the Android and Wear OS apps? how very Apple

------
mey
Since they are shutting down their API. Anyone have recommendations for a
single paid API service that provides global weather coverage?

------
acemarke
Noooo, the Android app and website are going away?

I've been using them the last several years and loved the simplicity and
balance of detail.

That's awful.

------
clSTophEjUdRanu
Worst April fool's joke of all time.

------
CodeSheikh
Well, time to change location privacy setting from "Always" to "Never".

------
namesbc
I use Dark Sky all the time. Such a shame to have it locked up behind Apple's
walls

------
mrfusion
So why does Apple want this? What does it get them? Is it just an aquuihire?
(Sp)

------
_hardwaregeek
Props to the author for explaining in the first line what the company does.

------
7ewis
So, what's the best minute level forecast Android app?

Plus, the best API alternative?

------
ChrisArchitect
damn, the website is my go-to source for weather, consistently accurate data
and easy to access interface, especially for glance-at hourly predictions

------
bromuro
I wish I could try it but is not available in Europe.

------
myko
Damn, I've had the Android app for years. RIP

------
MomchilIvanovK
In what world does Apple acquire Dark Sky lol?

------
Causality1
Out of curiosity, how much money did it take to get Dark Sky to fuck half
their users? What was their soul worth?

------
robgibbons
Shame on Apple. Hopefully the founders feel bad for letting this happen.

------
jes5199
we need to bring back anti-trust lawsuits.

------
macrofig
April fools?

------
0xff00ffee
Good for them! I was using it when it was Forecast.io and had a simple API.
They've been at it for what, 10 years? That's a long time for an equity event
but its good to hear. I don't think this is doom-and-gloom apple will ruin it.
Hopefully I'm not proven wrong.

------
dontbeunethical
When you buy an Apple product or invest in them you support evil.

------
2OEH8eoCRo0
Literally applied to a job posting hours ago.

------
sgt
I wonder how much Apple paid. Maybe a mix of cash and shares as well?

------
drewbailey
Android users looking for an alternative, CARROT is fun, accurate, and worth
the money

[http://www.meetcarrot.com/weather/](http://www.meetcarrot.com/weather/)

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hyperenergy
Looks like Darksky is a provider for CARROT, are the other provider choices
comparable?

~~~
drewbailey
Yes, Foreca, ClimaCell are good, AccuWeather, Aeris Weather and MeteoGroup are
also available.

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c54
Congrats to all part of the Dark Sky team!

There’s a lot of gloom in here about the death of the android apps, which is
sad to be sure, but there’ll be more good apps.

Anyways, an exit and aquisition by Apple is exciting and worth feeling good
about!

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ThomPete
Are there competitors to DarkSky out there? One of my startups is looking for
hyper-local real-time weather forecasting and unless they keep things running
as usual then we would probably need to find someone else.

