
Wading Through AccuWeather’s Response - colinprince
https://daringfireball.net/2017/08/wading_through_accuweathers_bullshit_response
======
code4tee
Weather.gov is the source for most forecasts out there anyway (your TV weather
guy is often just regurgitating what NOAA is saying) so I prefer to just get
the info from the source and devoid of all the click bait crap that has
infested most commercial weather sites.

~~~
jlgaddis
I completely agree. I used to have a couple of pages (across various weather
sites) bookmarked but nowadays I just have the "local" page on
forecast.weather.gov bookmarked. No ads, no links to clickbait articles, no
unrelated crap I don't care about, and it loads a helluva lot quicker and
transfers much less data also.

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AceyMan
I'm a weather app junkie owing to my previous career in airline operations.
I've tried (and bought) at least 95% of the decent weather app on Android.
Some oldies, but goodies, like Weather Services Pro & Eye in Sky. Currently
running Weather Timeline and am fairly happy. (Must have dewpoint data, or no
deal!)

But all that flapping was driven by my ditching AccuWeather (Premium) when
they re-did the UX in 2013, trading in simple line-art style icons (with theme
choices, also) to freaking _photos of the sky conditions_. Completely obtuse
and difficult to interpret at a glance. I have a scathing review posted (same
nick handle) which I 'touch' every so often to be sure it isn't listed as a
review "for a previous version of the application".

So I've been on the "Screw AccuWeather" train for lo these four-odd years now.

Welcome aboard, mateys. :-P

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lbhnact
weather.gov/5digitzip will take you straight to what you want and is just
about as easy as an app for most folks.

Using well-designed government services feels like a good habit these days.

Try it on your desktop or mobile browser, easy as pie:
[http://weather.gov/10018](http://weather.gov/10018)

~~~
saalweachter
Checking the same zip code with weather.gov and weather.com yielded 122KB /
1.6s (weather.gov) and 1.1MB / 18s (weather.com).

~~~
ivm
So we entered the era where government sites are lightweight and responsive
while commercial sites are bloated and slow.

~~~
whipoodle
In my experience government sites aren't usually slow or bloated, they just
look shitty.

~~~
ivm
I wouldn't call "shitty" something with a nice layout and readability. "Not
trendy" – yes.

~~~
mulmen
I wouldn't call the stereotypical government site a "nice layout". It seems
like more often than not my experience with government sites is that I have no
idea how to find the data I need.

Try finding a campground in Washington in the early spring. Is it open? Do
they take reservations? Are they required? Good luck.

Agreed that trendy and usable are unrelated.

~~~
brudgers
I've used [https://www.recreation.gov/](https://www.recreation.gov/)

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brudgers
To me, this raises the question of why should this class of behavior pass the
app store review process?

~~~
mcphage
Yeah—why should apps even be able to _see_ the list of available Wifi
networks? Or at the very least, it should require permissions, or maybe they
could only see networks from a pre-specified list?

~~~
efreak
At least on Android, I think it does require permissions. The difference is
that users have no idea what it is and therefore don't care. It's unfortunate
that the list of on-demand permissions doesn't include doesn't include things
like local network info (or internet access in general).

I personally give strong NO to any app that requests GPS location and isn't an
actual map app, but Google no longer requests confirmation (or even tells you)
when apps add new permissions in the same category, so every so often I have
to go through my list of installed apps.

------
cdubzzz
This has been interesting to follow. I went through something like ten
different weather apps before settling on AccuWeather because the app itself
is solid (compared to the other free options). Anyone have opinions of other
iOS weather apps?

~~~
dschuler
I like Weather Underground. It does have ads, but for $2 you can get rid of
them for a year I think.

I remember Yahoo Weather had a good UI, but used 200MB+/month of background
data even when not in use...

Edit: This is a bit off-topic, but aviationweather.gov has a METAR API that
works for any airport:
[https://aviationweather.gov/adds/dataserver](https://aviationweather.gov/adds/dataserver)

This is a great resource if you want a specific metric from a nearby reliable
source, e.g. air pressure or wind speed.

~~~
cdubzzz
Nice, thanks. I'm sure I checked out WU previously and perhaps I just didn't
like the ads. Looking again it is a good interface and $2 seems fine if the
alternative is free + suspect tracking.

Yahoo Weather was actually my go-to originally but at some point they made an
update that turned the thing in to like 80% ad/20% content. Plus their ads
were always pretty invasive.

------
tareqak
Canada has had Environment Canada's weather reporting for a while:

February 8, 2010:
[https://web.archive.org/web/20100208180217/http://www.weathe...](https://web.archive.org/web/20100208180217/http://www.weatheroffice.gc.ca:80/city/pages/on-143_metric_e.html)

Today:
[http://weather.gc.ca/city/pages/on-143_metric_e.html](http://weather.gc.ca/city/pages/on-143_metric_e.html)

As a fun extra, I just found an Apps Gallery that uses open data:
[http://open.canada.ca/en/apps?_ga=2.119480777.1582349726.150...](http://open.canada.ca/en/apps?_ga=2.119480777.1582349726.1503424264-1037109847.1501179108)

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dzdt
This article is based on the iphone app. Does anyone know the situation with
the android version?

~~~
MBCook
It wouldn't surprise me if it was doing something similar. Why be a shitty
privacy invading company on only one platform?

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valuearb
Time for the walled garden to throw a few perps outside the walls.

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B1FF_PSUVM
>> following the standards and best practices of the industry.

> No they’re not.

Afraid they are, and have the spreadsheets to show it.

~~~
mcphage
> have the spreadsheets to show it

Please, do—if this _is_ the standard practice, it should be prevented.

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tonetheman
reminds me of when apple did that same exact thing
[https://www.wired.com/2011/04/apple-iphone-
tracking/](https://www.wired.com/2011/04/apple-iphone-tracking/)

~~~
pvg
That's not even close to being 'that exact same thing'.

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schemathings
Privacy Badger only reported one tracking cookie (google analytics) on OP's
site. ;)

~~~
synicalx
Is that unexpected?

~~~
schemathings
Just seemed ironic in context. HN doesn't, for example.

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random023987
Does anyone expect their information not to be monetized from any "free"
application?

(with the possible exception of an open-source application built and
distributed by an open-source advocate, e.g. Firefox, K-9 mail, sipdroid, DDG,
etc.)

~~~
sp332
This is explicitly against the App Store terms of service, so yes it's
unexpected.

~~~
jacquesm
If you really start taking the App Store terms of service and apply them to
the letter to the Apps in the store quite a few very popular apps would
vanish.

~~~
MBCook
And I wish hey would, for these kind of reasons. So many popular apps
flagrantly violate the rules but get to stay because their popular (Uber,
Facebook, etc).

Lots of minor ones are seemingly ignored. They break rules too but Apple
doesn't seem to care.

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feelin_googley
Question: _Hypothetically_ , if Apple were collecting similiar data that would
allow reasonably accurate geolocation of any iOS-running device (without
explicit user consent), would this blogger be similarly upset?

In other words, does his protest extend to all _unconsented_ collection of
data that can be used to geolocate, or only to collection by certain parties
of which he does not approve?

To clarify the term "unconsented", I mean outgoing connections to the third
party's servers that are not intentionally initiated by the user.

For example, periodic automatic outgoing connections would be "unconsented"
unless the user has to do something to initiate them and is aware she is
initiating constant network traffic that will continue indefinitely. (The
traffic might plausibly be used for geolocation.)

~~~
blktiger
Yes

