(Unless it’s a premature April Fool’s Day joke)
I saw this on Macstories twitter. I also thought after a while and lack of coverage from other sources that this might be a April Fools joke but honestly I kind of think it’s real.
The iOS/iPadOS app was updated 22 hours ago. I just updated and got a pop up notice about the change when I opened the app a few minutes ago.
Ah yeah it’s real. Android users are going nuts. I’ve used Dark Sky for a couple of years now …love it but only really use it in its most basic needs. I do love the hyper local alerts because they’re fairly accurate. I image Dark Sky will essentially become the new weather app so out goes licensing The Weather Channel as well.
Another obvious integration should weather in Calendar and perhaps Maps. It’s a great buy for Apple
Guessing the 3rd party apps using the API might have challenges. Not sure if Apple would make that available at some point in time.
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I bought Dark Sky for $3.99 in June 2012, and I’ve been a devoted user - most recently as one of the predictive options in the optional Pro subscription for Hello Weather (alongside Pro results from Accuweather and The Weather Channel). Great service, great app.
Given how most (all?) free weather apps monetize your location data, this could well end up being another privacy differentiator for Apple to offer its users (and tout to potential ones).
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I was surprised to read the article on iDB about the acquisition. Dark Sky is my weather app of choice
This is a weird product acq, so I’m kind of thinking acqhire…?
I mean, integrate the service into the Weather app by all means, but the product is only available in certain regions, and afaik they can’t just scale it up easily either.
I know, that’s why I write service instead of app.
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Aqui-hire means buying a company for its engineering and product design resources, and shutting down the product so this does not appear to be an aqui-hire (something Apple does do with small tech companies on a regular basis).
The API shutdown is the real news here - most likely other apps are going to have to find another data source.
Was anyone else surprised to not see any mention of this during Monday’s keynote? I’m jut curious if any of the Dark Sky features or functionality will make it into iOS14.
Just for comparison, Apple acquired Workflow in March 2017 and didn’t introduce Shortcuts until WWDC 2018.
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Apparently it already has. Reports say that the detailed info provided by Dark Sky have been rolled into the Weather iOS app in v14.
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That’s fascinating, thank you! I can’t wait for the public beta and begin playing around.
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FYI it looks like 3rd-party weather apps are finding needed replacements for Dark Sky. Although iOS users can use it until the end of the year, Android apps only have API access until the end of the month, so cross-platform weather apps are scrambling.
My weather app of choice, Hello Weather, just pushed out an update that added ClimaCell weather - hyperlocal forecasts like Dark Sky but available around the world, and it also includes air quality and pollen data. (If you are a Pro user of Hello Weather you get to flip between forecasts from multiple weather services.)
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