
Introducing DarkSky.net - OberstKrueger
http://blog.darksky.net/introducing-darksky-net/
======
lloeki
While forecast.io has been available worldwide and Android apps have been
making liberal use of its API, the Dark Sky iOS app isn't available outside
select countries:

    
    
       Item Not Available
       
       The item you've requested is not currently available in the French
       Store, but it is available in the U.S. Store. Click Change Store to view
       this item.

~~~
alexhawdon
I believe that's because their original focus, and still the primary focus of
the mobile app, is 'hyperlocal', near-term precipitation prediction.

To do this they require access to high-resolution (spatial and temporal) rain
radar data, which isn't universally available. (In the USA this is provided by
the NOAA, in the UK by the Met Office.)

~~~
clashmoore
Hyperlocal because it also uses the data from many small private weather
stations around the US. So many times the data you're seeing is from a weather
station in a neighbors yard around the block.

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chris_7
I prefer forecast.io. First, when I visit darksky.net, I get a location in
Kansas. Forecast.io gives me New York, via GeoIP (?), without requiring
location services. I'll assume that's just a bug, though.

The main problem is that I really don't care about the maps. It's 78 in
Jacksonville, apparently, but I live in New York. I will very, very, very
rarely care about the weather in Jacksonville.

Forecast.io quickly tells me, without scrolling, what the weather will be for
the next hour, the next day, and the next seven days. That matters. It does it
with a quick, easy to parse hierarchy - all in a column, same sizes for
elements, left-aligned. It does have the globe map, but I mostly consider that
a visual accent. It's a rain map though, which is at least more useful than a
temperature map (rain tends to move in a certain direction).

While darksky.net has this information, it's not as easy to follow. It's
center-aligned, which is harder to read, and the different fonts don't have a
clear role. It goes now -> day -> hour -> (ad for an app I've already
downloaded) -> (giant map) -> week, instead of now -> hour -> day -> week, so
the scope jumps around instead of increasing with each step.

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falkenb0t
I think it just defaults you to New York on forecast.io because I'm getting
that when I load the page and I'm located in San Diego

~~~
chris_7
Oh, bleh, dumb luck then. It should really use GeoIP.

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farnsworth
This is great- most weather sites are slow and crappy and covered in ads. The
maps especially are gorgeous. And it's getting close to being a good
replacement for weatherspark.com, the best weather site ever built IMO
(formerly - they built it on flash and couldn't maintain it anymore).

Dark Sky has the historic data too but weatherspark let you pan across the
timeline and zoom in and out easily. It made it fun to explore and discover
patterns in different areas.

I'd looked into building my own weather site frontend, but finding a good
source for radar data was the sticking point, since they were all too
expensive or hard to work with. DarkSky.net has radar on the maps, but I don't
see it in the API, unless I'm missing something.

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prohor
It is a bit confusing that you have unit selection (for temperature and wind
speed) in top-right corner, and then separate for map. I thought it is broken
before I noticed the other switch.

~~~
ungzd
And its state isn't saved so I have to switch each time I open the page. And
it defaults to proprietary units from used in only one country.

~~~
aroch
Last I checked, the US didn't invent Imperial units, there's nothing
proprietary about them (they easily and readily inter-convert with metric) and
Fahrenheit was Polish/German.

The DarkSky team is based in and focus is also the US and (partially) UK.

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BenoitP
Nice colors and resolution!

I'd love to see one of these weather visualization sites overlay the live
lightning strikes from
[http://en.blitzortung.org/live_dynamic_maps.php](http://en.blitzortung.org/live_dynamic_maps.php).

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ashitlerferad
Thought this was going to be something related to light pollution:

[http://darksky.org/](http://darksky.org/)

~~~
overcast
Same. Poor choice in domain.

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JoshGlazebrook
One thing I always find missing with forecast.io/DarkSky apis is that you have
to supply cordinates to get the weather of a location. What if I want to be
able to query by city or postal code? It's the only reason why I stick with
weather underground for my weather chat bot where people are trying to get
weather info based on a (city, region), (city, region, country), or (postal
code).

~~~
lojack
Sure, its another API, but its relatively trivial to get the lat/long from a
location using something like the Google Geocoding API.

All things equal, a single API call is nicer, but I wouldn't personally let
that be the only reason to not use DarkSky's API.

~~~
pferde
So, instead of depending on one service, you now depend on two.

~~~
johnduhart
Yes, because I'd rather DarkSky focus on being a great weather API than being
a mediocre geocoding API.

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dvirsky
I love the forecast.io rainfall animation, seems to have been removed from the
DarkSky website. that's such a shame.

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philbarr
They seem to be upsetting a lot of Android users by charging £2.99 a year for
it as a subscription model.

Personally I don't mind since I've been using forecast.io for years and it's
invaluable when planning to walk the dog without getting caught in a downpour.

~~~
soylentcola
Yeah, this is why I didn't buy the app when it came to Android. I've got
friends on iOS who swear by it so I was psyched to see it hit the Play Store.
But when I saw it was a recurring bill, I just stuck with 1Weather or Weather
Timeline.

I guess there's just a point where I can get weather info (sometimes from the
same source, as in Weather Timeline) for a few bucks one time. And if it's a
service that requires constant funding, I understand that. But it doesn't make
sense that I have to keep paying while many friends just paid their $4 one
time.

I think it's that different approach that turned me off to it regardless of
how good the product was. Is it enough of an improvement over other apps (even
ones that use forecast.io) to be worth a subscription fee instead of a one-
time payment of $4 or $5?

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yalooze
Meta: seems like a setting or plugin in their Wordpress instance is stealing
the default middle-click functionality (open in new window). I always wonder
what the original intent with such things is...

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viola11
I expected a project dedicated to combating light pollution, or possibly
saying where the closes dark sky was. Got severely disappointed.

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unicornporn
I'm in Sweden and I can't find the app in Google Play, even if I'm searching
for "net.darksky.darksky".

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mxuribe
Pretty cool!

