Apple acquires Dark Sky

Re:Apple acquires Dark Sky by dguo on Tuesday March 31, 2020 @03:51PM (#22741729)

"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

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Re:Apple acquires Dark Sky by joeblau on Tuesday March 31, 2020 @03:59PM (#22741817)

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...

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Re:Apple acquires Dark Sky by dguo on Tuesday March 31, 2020 @04:15PM (#22742000)

That's fair. My counterpoint would be that Apple could have become a customer of the Dark Sky API, achieving essentially the same result without Dark Sky having to kill off platforms.

But sure, at that point, it probably makes sense for Apple to just buy the company to make sure that the data supply chain is within their control.

I am just a little bitter to lose the service personally.

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Re:Apple acquires Dark Sky by CarlRJ on Tuesday March 31, 2020 @08:30PM (#22744387)

Counter-counterpoint would be, Apple becomes a customer of the API, and then someone else (Google, Facebook, whoever) buys Dark Sky and Apple has to scramble.

I'm bitter too, I build my own local/remote weather station at home (several Raspberry Pi's, an Arduino with a custom shield, and 15k lines of Python), which uses Dark Sky's API as one of its data sources. This means I have a year or so to find a new data source and rewrite a bunch of code (and no source is going to give me exactly the same data from the same sensors, so my 3-4 years of historical data is going to have a definite before/after cutoff in it).

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Re:Apple acquires Dark Sky by joeblau on Tuesday March 31, 2020 @07:10PM (#22743762)

Yeah that is understandable. The data is still going to be surfaced via Duck Duck Go, but that's not the same as having an integrated experience.

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Re:Apple acquires Dark Sky by teddyh on Tuesday March 31, 2020 @05:01PM (#22742543)

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

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Re:Apple acquires Dark Sky by outworlder on Tuesday March 31, 2020 @08:44PM (#22744480)

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

Although a Klingon Mummification Glyph sounds much more awesome.

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Re:Apple acquires Dark Sky by the_pwner224 on Tuesday March 31, 2020 @07:20PM (#22743857)

For me it shows as the box in the browser, but when I search for f8ff in KCharSelect with FreeSans (GNU FreeFont) it shows as the Apple company logo.

The area also contains the Ubuntu icon as well as the Ubuntu word logo, and a bunch of assorted text symbols (numbers, fractions, accents, arrows, etc.).

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Re:Apple acquires Dark Sky by joeblau on Tuesday March 31, 2020 @07:49PM (#22744098)

Haha sorry, I'll replace that with the word Apple in the future.

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Re:Apple acquires Dark Sky by LeoPanthera on Tuesday March 31, 2020 @05:48PM (#22743017)

The Apple Weather app and Siri currently get data from The Weather Channel, not Yahoo.

(At least, in the USA.)

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Re:Apple acquires Dark Sky by joeblau on Tuesday March 31, 2020 @07:07PM (#22743745)

Ah yes, you are correct! the iPhone weather app data is from Yahoo.

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Re:Apple acquires Dark Sky by sb8244 on Tuesday March 31, 2020 @03:59PM (#22741822)

I agree with you.

I could see justification in the fact that this integrated, by default, into every iOS device in the world is a bigger reach than the Android/API markets they have.

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