As a former paid user of Dark Sky that lost that information when Apple bought them I feel no sympathy for iOS users that Dark Sky has gone to crap
I am sad such an amazing tool for the world was destroyed by a corporation trying to deprive another corporation so they could maybe make a little more money.
> Support for the Dark Sky iOS app will end on December 31st, 2022, and support for the Dark Sky API will end on March 31st, 2023.
So basically them buying then closing the service to make their own seem better
* Climate change is causing problems with forecasting models
* Forecasting models changed, which has introduce unexpected edge cases
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/07/200717101026.h...
While this is confirmation bias, this reflects almost identically with the timeframe in which the forecasts became significantly worse in my area.
I'm not sure this happens on the time scale of 'app got acquired', though. It's absolutely going to increase year by year, and if you'd got used to how it was three years ago and didn't notice some of the outlier events, you might be shocked at the new normal.
Climate change absolutely will cause problems with any conceivable forecasting model because you can't encapsulate chaos, only map its expected potential outcomes: and the nasty truth is that energy is fed into the system, those potential outcomes blow up exponentially. Not even slightly linear. So that's what we're seeing.
So I'd not be surprised if they somehow switched their data source to be not as granular as it once was.
Honestly, that's about right here in Florida. :)
Agreed on the local-storage-for-health-data bit, but I'm sure they could argue that the ambient sensor isn't privacy-relevant.
Does Apple Watch have a light sensor for an auto dimming display? If so, that can be used as a proxy for indoor/outdoor. It isn't great, shade and such. Throw barometer in there, and you can do a decent job.
Microsoft Band had a UV sensor, so we were able to get pretty accurate detection of indoor/outdoor when combined with all the other sensors, at least during the day. I'm sad UV sensors didn't take off on smart watches in general, it is a super useful sensor to have, but they are rather large and even the lens material to go over them is different than what is otherwise required for a wearable.
Then, you still have to account for the fact that your thermometer is located right next to a variable ~100W heater, vs. normal weather stations that are normally located away from heat sources. Also, the thermometer and heater are occasionally placed inside a tight-fitting insulated container.
Maybe they are they next to a window or under a sky light.
> or if they could use location data to figure out that 'this Apple Watch is in the middle of a large field, so he must be outside'.
Could be in a tent or other temporary structure.
Don't talk like that, its a self defeating mindset. You are likely as competent as most Apple engineers (the 10x benefit from less inhibitions and tons of energy.
The people working at apple are like most of us here, curious and driven. Apple has a lot of money to throw at people who bring in experience whereas you and I are individuals who do not work in the field of "figuring out where things are using computers." So we obviously are not experts in the field and not familiar with existing and emerging solutions for the problem.
Its a shame that it is locked up inside of apple.
Second, it doesn't give you any additional readings over oceans, which is where the data is lacking in the current network of data.
It does give you more robust surface temperature readings in cloudy areas but that doesn't really help you predict the weather significantly better.
Source: degree in atmospheric sciences
Let’s pretend that data from user portable devices isn’t garbage (it is): then what do you even do with it? In cities you’ll have thousands of readings per voxel none of which are more valuable. Then you have to clean your data, excluding data from inside or vehicles or hot pavement or heated patios and so on. Apple won’t go to the expense of running their own GCM, and I doubt even mesoscale models. All I could see is some sort of correlative AI, doing microscale adjustments to government sponsored models. So all of this work, and maybe you get one degree better at forecasts and a bit of nowcasting. And because it isn’t physics-based, you might occasionally get something very wrong happening.
The oceans are a data hole (technical term, really) as you mentioned, but the real missing data is above the surface. It’s too bad about Project Loon, because that would have been much more helpful to forecasting than a million monkeys wearing watches.
Is there a really no use in having higher resolution for modeling the boundary layer?
It seems like having a mountain covered in tiny barometric and temp sensors could at least validate a lot of what we think we know about the boundary layer.
I personally would love to be able to see what the temperature at the bottom and top of a given topographic feature is, as well as how atmospheric pressure is deviating from pure altitude differences.
I build instruments for gliders so I know that the sensors in our phones are capable of incredibly fine resolution. Is there really no use for billions of high resolution data points in climate science?
Unless you're sick, most people's body temperature is within a fairly tight range.
So they could compensate for that ...
Or, ahem.... "cold winter evenings". ;-)
Air pressure on the other hand...
Why would the most profitable company in the world want to get into one of the worst businesses in the world?
It's absurdly capital intensive.
Sure, Apple has an abundance of capital, but their shareholders are unlikely to approve this over ever more share buybacks...
But is mobile telecoms really one of the worst businesses in the world ?
I would argue that its one of the worst executed businesses in the world, but not the worst business.
Travel and hospitality would likely be fairer examples of "worst businesses", perhaps especially the airline business.
Carriers have 50-60% gross margins. They are critical enough to get special tax treatments to deal with the capital expenses. If the goal is to make money, what would be the “best” business? Drug cartel?
Indeed. Many people don't realise how amazingly robust margins have remained.
A lot of it is because its such a closed shop which is why they can get away with many things.
My hunch is they print pallets of cash, then use some large fraction for bonfires.
What are good businesses?
Apple... Saudi Aramco... Google... AWS...
Sure, Apple's theoretical cell subscribers could grow a lot - but no one is going to care...
It would be such a small part of the profits compared to hardware sales and other services - with a MASSIVE capital cost - probably much higher than phone R&D.
It would be less capital intensive and possibly more profitable for Apple to manufacture their own phones than start their own carrier business... And that's a horrible idea, too...
The idea of starting your own carrier business that isn't an MVNe is almost absurd.
Why doesn't Tesla build their own roads while we're at it?
For what it's worth I think BNPL is simply an attempt by Apple to get some yield on their insane cash pile. Last year they had over $0.2T on hand. [1] They're making it faster than they seem to be able to return it to shareholders.
BNPL is a pretty bad business - margins are low, buyers are generally not qualified in the same way as other lending, ticket sizes are low, and collections aren't worth it (you really gonna repossess my $20 gently-used socks?). However, if Apple has a better way to qualify the customers (a big if)...
They can take ~3-4% of the transaction, net like 0.5% for a 6 week loan, which is like a 4.5% APR. Their margins may be better than peers since they can use their own cash instead of raising debt. Maybe 6-7% APR. It's also short-term debt that turns over fast so it's highly liquid.
My wholly uninformed opinion is that this is more of a cash management product that happens to be built on their data for Apple than a data product per se. After all you can't just roll up at BofA with a $0.2T check and get that kind of APR.
[1] https://www.investors.com/etfs-and-funds/sectors/sp500-every...
Apple has said they'll be charging zero interest and zero fees for this service, including zero late fees, so where the yield will be coming from is unclear. That said, I confess that I don't have a deep understanding of the BNPL market.
With respect to cards: cards have a number of advantages for both merchants and customers. Cash is not free to handle and carries risk (theft, etc) and it's really slow. Credit card buyers tend to have larger average ticket sizes (20% larger was the last one I saw) and card buyers have more confidence buying from smaller shops knowing that they can always charge back the merchant if something goes terribly wrong. In a real way chargebacks are a big part of how we got e-commerce.
Merchant agreements generally precluded credit surcharges but they always allowed cash discounts. This is commonly seen at US gas stations to this day. They also prohibited credit card minimum purchase amounts. To my knowledge both of these are no longer true.
Shops aren't putting up with cards so much as embracing them because that's how their customers want to pay, and they don't want to miss out on a sale.
The more this gets legislated the harder it will be for someone to enter the market later on, Apple (among other tech giants) aren't going to sit back while you write the laws, it'll be the other way around.
Note that net neutrality has never been passed as a Federal regulation.
If I could cut them out all together and buy an iPhone and cell service with Apple. Done.
Are you American by any chance ?
This has been solves in other places through regulations
These sorts of comments are common but always strike me as having been made by someone with little to no real world experience on the specific issue being discussed.
I lived in France and now I'm in Germany, still using my French sim card, for no additional cost. I can change carriers whenever I want with no delay and transfer my number to the new carrier, all of that for much cheaper than what was available in the US when I was living there.
No contract, no hidden fees, no loops to jump through to cancel a subscription, it just works. I really don't see what one more monopoly would solve.
Feel free to publish your list of grievances, I suspect they're extremely out of the ordinary
Ask anybody who has lived in the UK long enough about Vodafone.
The story normally goes something like this:
- 90s = Dogs bollocks, nobody came close
- 00s = Started to smell a bit, but still the most robust technical service
- early 10s = Really starting to rest on their laurels now
- late 10s – today = Shit, godawful shit.Isn't that just tax evasion and/or "investment" in a time with negative interest ?
> Or look at the fact they still haven't rolled out Apple card internationally. My uninformed guess is that it is more to do with "something's brewing" rather than the US cards not working.
Banking and credit card operations are some of the most regulated businesses in the world, and financial authorities have different requirements from country to country, which would make it prohibitively expensive to roll out on a global scale.
This has been Appple's business model and advertising for decades: your digital lifestyle hardware and software solution.
Because Apple want to control the quality of the user experience.
Right now Apple Hardware and Apple Software are tightly interlinked. Apple can do things in software because they design 100% of the hardware, and vice-versa.
There's a lot of stuff Apple do in terms of quality of experience that's only possible because of that tight integration. Stuff that would be impossible to do with generic hardware and generic software.
But equally Apple know that if you buy an iPhone, you are dependent on a carrier for service. Like the rest of the world, it has probably not escaped Apple's attention that the quality of service you get from the carriers is becoming rapidly worse by the day. As a result, an Apple user's poor experience with an iPhone might have nothing to do with Apple but everything to do with the carrier.
Having carrier level integration with iPhone could also open up further user experience improvements (e.g. maybe they could do clever stuff at carrier level to help preserve battery).
you nailed it.. they are concerned about the "quality of the user experience" and not the billions of dollars at stake?
Is this why Apple artificially limits which machines can be updated to MacOS as well, to ensure the quality of the user experience and not to drive sales?
In my experience, mobile connectivity just keeps getting better and better. I have lived on both US coasts and traveled to multiple developing countries, and even in places like Zimbabwe I had pretty great connectivity considering where I was.
To clarify ....
When I spoke of "quality of service" above, I didn't mean technical service (although for some carriers it can be a factor), I meant customer service.
I think you'll struggle to find anyone who will say their carrier's customer service has improved in recent years. Carrier customer service, irrespective of what country you live in, is generally globally accepted to only be in the "awful to non-existent" range.
Even with several friends/family on our 10-line plan (to share costs) - it's been a breeze to maintain.
Don't even get me started on the Apple TV. I've never been able to reliably use the remote (physical or app).
New term: "Vertical Monopoly"
Its clear Apple are heading down the disruptive disintermediation route.
Look at the Air Tag. Effectively killing off competitors by making use of the global network of Apple devices.
Look at their recent BNPL (buy now, pay later) announcement for example. Managing the whole caboodle, including the finance itself, entirely internally.
Or look at the fact they still haven't rolled out Apple card internationally. My uninformed guess is that it is more to do with "something's brewing" rather than the US cards not working.
Their recent satphone announcement. Clearly that's just the start. I think most people are guessing the endgame will be carrier disintermediation. And frankly, given how shit most cell carriers are, I can't wait for Apple to come along and give the incumbents a run for their money.