[HN Gopher] A eulogy for Dark Sky, a data visualization masterpiece
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A eulogy for Dark Sky, a data visualization masterpiece
Author : skadamat
Score : 416 points
Date : 2023-03-22 16:01 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (nightingaledvs.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (nightingaledvs.com)
| NegativeLatency wrote:
| I find it quite frustrating that I can't look at what the temp
| was a few hours ago in apple weather, really liked dark sky
| causality0 wrote:
| I can't help but remember back when they got purchased and we
| Android users lamented that we were losing it and Apple was going
| to ruin it, and many of the responses were "Haha, you should've
| bought an iPhone, Dark Sky is going to be great with Apple's
| financial support!"
| cubefox wrote:
| Related: Weather apps could in general be better, not just in
| terms of visualization. One thing which always annoys me is how
| they handle rain predictions. They give "probabilities" for rain.
| But what do those mean? The probability that it rains for at
| least one minute in the given time frame? And with at least x
| mm/inches of rain coming down? And isn't a low probability of
| short and weak rain totally different from a equally low
| probability of strong or long rain?
|
| But there is a perfectly elegant alternative: Just use the
| _expected amount of rainfall_. The epected value combines both
| amount and probability of rainfall in one single number, without
| being highly arbitrary like other approaches, such as the usual
| reporting of plain "probabilities" with unclear interpretation.
|
| (Of course one could add to the expected rainfall amount also the
| variance, to distinguish more certain predictions from more
| uncertain ones, though this information might often not even be
| that important.)
| sweettea wrote:
| Expected value is already what most forecasts show. Expected
| value conveys information poorly in some common cases, like
| thunderstorms in the summer. It is very different to hear
| there's a 20% chance of a thunderstorm, dropping an inch of
| rain, vs. a 100% chance of .2" rain - the former needs a backup
| plan to deal with rain, the latter needs to plan for rain.
| Hence I prefer the text forecasts from the NWS, which list an
| amount possible, plus more in thunderstorms, rather than a bare
| number.
|
| Meanwhile the 'probability' listed in forecasts is also well
| defined as an expected value - it's (probability of X% rain
| coverage) * (X %), over all X. (Rain is defined as > .01")
| cubefox wrote:
| Okay, in very high variance cases like thunderstorms the
| expected value might indeed not be enough, but there are
| usually additional storm warnings for that anyway. My claim
| is just that the expected amount of rainfall is much more
| interesting than the probability of rainfall. Yet the apps I
| know display probabilities prominently, not expected values.
| delusional wrote:
| Not a meteorologist, just a computer science guy that read a
| couple of papers.
|
| My understanding is that the probabilities in weather forecasts
| aren't a probability at all, but rather a coverage measure.
| Local weather models are computed in discrete grid coordinates
| of say 10km. Every grid cell of 10km^2 has a single set of
| computed forecast data. The percentage is a measure of how much
| of that area received rain in the timeframe, not of probability
| of rain, but of coverage of rain.
| iudqnolq wrote:
| Relatedly, I'm fasinated by how much human judgement goes into
| those numbers. A meteorologist with local expertise looks at a
| few different models, decides which are more likely to be
| accurate, and then fills out a grid.
| [deleted]
| skadamat wrote:
| Author here -- I wholeheartedly agree. I recommend reading up
| on some of the research in uncertainty visualization. There's a
| good example of visualizing the probability that a bus will
| arrive in the next X minutes that feels similar.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E1kSnWvqCw0
| babblingdweeb wrote:
| Just to hop on this, the standard is counter intuitive for rain
| probability. I'm annoyed, but also fascinated by how much it
| "makes sense" when I have read about it, but it also "makes no
| sense" when I just want to know: should I get my jacket? :)
|
| Loose definition (with errors and assumptions, but helps some
| without getting into actual probability math):
|
| If it says "30%" - many of us have heard "30% chance of
| showers". It is NOT "30% chance of showers"; it actually is
| "100% percent chance of rain, over 30% of the area, within a
| given time, of a particular amount of rain."
|
| Which is STILL (to me), difficult for the average person to
| comprehend.
|
| Copying and pasting from Weather.com (linked PDF -
| https://www.weather.gov/media/pah/WeatherEducation/pop.pdf)
|
| PRECIPITATION PROBABILITY The probability of precipitation
| forecast is one of the most least understood elements of the
| weather forecast. The probability of precipitation has the
| following features: ..... The likelihood of occurrence of
| precipitation is stated as a percentage ..... A measurable
| amount is defined as 0.01" (one hundredth of an inch) or more
| (usually produces enough runoff for puddles to form) ..... The
| measurement is of liquid precipitation or the water equivalent
| of frozen precipitation ..... The probability is for a
| specified time period (i.e., today, this afternoon, tonight,
| Thursday) ..... The probability forecast is for any given point
| in the forecast area To summarize, the probability of
| precipitation is simply a statistical probability of 0.01" inch
| of more of precipitation at a given area in the given forecast
| area in the time period specified. Using a 40% probability of
| rain as an example, it does not mean (1) that 40% of the area
| will be covered by precipitation at given time in the given
| forecast area or (2) that you will be seeing precipitation 40%
| of the time in the given forecast area for the given forecast
| time period. Let's look at an example of what the probability
| does mean. If a forecast for a given county says that there is
| a 40% chance of rain this afternoon, then there is a 40% chance
| of rain at any point in the county from noon to 6 p.m. local
| time. This point probability of precipitation is predetermined
| and arrived at by the forecaster by multiplying two factors:
| Forecaster certainty that precipitation will form or move into
| the area X Areal coverage of precipitation that is expected
| (and then moving the decimal point two places to the left)
| Using this, here are two examples giving the same statistical
| result: (1) If the forecaster was 80% certain that rain would
| develop but only expected to cover 50% of the forecast area,
| then the forecast would read "a 40% chance of rain" for any
| given location. (2) If the forecaster expected a widespread
| area of precipitation with 100% coverage to approach, but
| he/she was only 40% certain that it would reach the forecast
| area, this would, as well, result in a "40% chance of rain" at
| any given location in the forecast area.
| cubefox wrote:
| Yeah that definition makes sense. It's indeed the probability
| you would get at least 0.01" of rain if we assume you are
| equally likely to be located anywhere in the forecast area.
|
| But for deciding for "getting your jacket", the expected
| amount of rainfall seems much more relevant. Basically, you
| don't need a jacket if the rainfall is very unlikely, or
| weak, or short. In all those cases the expected amount will
| be low.
| freetime2 wrote:
| I tend to use probability more for decision making - usually
| trying to determine whether I need to bring an umbrella or rain
| gear with me on a given day. If the probability is low I can
| usually just look out the window and time my trips outside when
| it's not raining and probably get by without rain gear. Whereas
| a high probability means I'm probably going to need to go out
| in the rain at some point, and need to pack appropriately.
|
| I also do a lot of cycling, and total duration spent in the
| rain tends to matter more to me than the amount of rainfall. I
| don't mind riding through a quick downpour or two on a ride if
| I can dry out in between, but spending several hours in
| constant rain can be miserable (and hypothermia becomes a
| concern) - even if it's light rain.
|
| Of course expected amount definitely has uses, too. For example
| if there is rain forecast for tonight, and I'm trying to
| determine the probability that a field will be usable for
| practice in the morning.
|
| Anyway I would say that both probability and expected amount
| are important, and any competent weather app should offer both.
| The Apple Weather app only shows hourly forecasts for expected
| amount, and that alone would be enough to be a dealbreaker for
| me.
| jliptzin wrote:
| When I used to use dark sky the radar map was awful. Most frames
| seemed to be empty data and the animations were very jerky. At
| first I thought it was a temporary issue but it never got fixed
| even after many years of use. Did anyone else notice that?
| yborg wrote:
| Yes, and I've noticed that Apple's Weather app is *even worse*
| on that front. The regional radar views rarely load for me.
| rz2k wrote:
| Similarly, IBM bought Weather Underground, deprecated both
| _Storm_ and _Wunderstation_ apps with excellent visualizations,
| and then never bothered to release anything that was worth using.
|
| I keep Storm on an iPhone and look at it every so often, even
| though it no longer retrieves weather data.
| BugsJustFindMe wrote:
| Dark Sky was fine and all, but in my view it didn't even come
| close to the elegant perfection of their precusor forecast.io's
| secret-for-no-good-reason and then canceled-for-no-good-reason
| /lines interface.
| davweb wrote:
| Carrot Weather added the "inline" view which replicates Dark Sky
| pretty well. [1] It's been an easy transition for me, although
| Carrot is more expensive.
|
| [1]: http://meetcarrot.com/weather/goodbyedarksky.html
| MisterBastahrd wrote:
| Well, I tried to install this on Android and was met with
| "unable to connect to server."
|
| I wonder if Carrot is using the Dark Sky API.
| davweb wrote:
| Carrot lets you pick your data source [1]. One of the options
| is the Dark Sky API which is still operating until March 31
| [2].
|
| [1]: https://support.meetcarrot.com/weather/
|
| [2]: https://darksky.net/dev
| pasc1878 wrote:
| Well perhaps March 21st. Carrot seems not to be working
| withe Dark Sky now but does with other sources.
|
| In the UK the DarkSky source data also appears better.
|
| Unfortunately the MetOffce app is not good.
| MisterBastahrd wrote:
| Maybe on Apple devices. There's no option on Android
| devices to choose the API. Just a button to refresh and
| another that gives witty replies if you press it.
| leokennis wrote:
| Same for https://weathergraph.app
| Rebelgecko wrote:
| Coincidentally carrot is down too
| zer0x4d wrote:
| Anyone else notice how inaccurate the iOS weather app has gotten
| in iOS 16? It used to be very accurate in terms of rain/snow in
| California, but recently it's just completely wrong. I end up
| going to weather.com to get an accurate report.
| ojkelly wrote:
| Down in Melbourne, Australia it's regularly 5-10 degrees wrong.
|
| It's like they got a 7 day forecast, and never updated it.
|
| Something must have happened this year, because it used to be
| very accurate.
|
| Now, if if you want accurate weather (down under) you need to
| use the pretty good BOM app. But, it doesn't have a Home Screen
| widget, or watch complications.
| whalesalad wrote:
| The UI always kinda rubbed me the wrong way. Elements of it were
| neat, but I wouldn't call it a masterpiece. The real reason it
| succeeded was a lack of advertisements tbh.
| p1mrx wrote:
| What are the best Dark Sky clones out there? Ideally open source.
| iguana_lawyer wrote:
| The closing of Dark Sky was a tremendous loss. We went from
| having minute-accurate weather forecasts to having daily
| forecasts like the ones from a century ago. It was devastating.
| jibbit wrote:
| I would love to see screenshots of the first iteration of dark
| sky- for old times sake.
|
| Apple has well & truly forsaken us.
| boringg wrote:
| Dark sky was well done, i don't understand why someone else
| doesn't replicate it. Apple weather isn't specific enough to be
| valuable.
|
| RIP
| mnutt wrote:
| Related, the Dark Sky website and API began returning 503s
| earlier today, despite the Dark Sky Blog (the only thing still
| up) prominently displaying:
|
| > The Dark Sky API and website will continue to function until
| March 31st, 2023.
| jnsaff2 wrote:
| I always found it confusing, even after years of using it. I
| guess I was doing it wrong.
| realkiddredd wrote:
| I went so far as to buy the Carrot premium version which allows
| you to get pretty close to the DS app with some settings. I don't
| mind paying for good design. The Apple weather app is laughingly
| antithetical to usual Apple design standards. Somewhere, Steve is
| not amused.
| moneytoo wrote:
| I ended up combining multiple forecast providers in a single
| chart and can't use (and don't need to) anything else. There were
| some good apps but most don't really help orientation within the
| chart or maintaining the chart scale.
|
| https://weatherian.com/
| BenFranklin100 wrote:
| Meh. Dark sky visualization design was nothing special. The
| pinnacle of beautiful, compact, data rich weather apps remains
| Weather Underground back in its day before it got bought up and
| shredded. Now there was an weather app that could show you a
| week's worth of weather at a glance.
| vl wrote:
| Dark Sky was good, but had it's strange quirks too. On top of
| that some features were undiscoverable - for example it was
| possible to click bubbles on the right side of the graph to get
| detailed view of the hour. Very useful, I stumbled on it randomly
| after years of use.
|
| Weather has same information, presented a bit in a different way.
| Sure, I think they could have done better job.
|
| Most important component, however, are the models they use.
| Weather/Dark Sky models are good, but at some moment they diverge
| from Wundeground - another app I use. So I started paying for
| Windy, which allows you to see a view with 6 (!) different
| models. I'm not sure why I _need_ that, but I love having this
| feature.
| chrisbrandow wrote:
| I have not found a replacement for the 1 week precipitation map
| on any of the usually suggested apps.
|
| Has anyone else found this feature elsewhere?
| outworlder wrote:
| Dark Sky was eerily accurate, sometimes to the minute. That was
| great because my dog hates rain. I've often dropped what I was
| doing immediately and get out earlier because of a Dark Sky
| notification. If it told me I had 25 minutes before rain started,
| I really had 25 minutes.
|
| I've noticed that it got progressively less accurate the closer
| it got of the shutdown by Apple.
|
| The iOS weather app is pretty inaccurate and borderline useless
| in comparison. It will tell me it's raining when it's not and
| vice/versa. Time predictions are so out of whack that they might
| as well not be there; they also get revised all the time.
|
| I understand that weather can be finnicky and predictions are
| just that. But Dark Sky did it correctly and Apple does not. I
| wonder what was the point of acquiring them, if their UI is
| inferior (although pretty!) and so are the predictions.
| SystemOut wrote:
| I would just like an app that has a functional precipitation map
| view. Both Dark Sky and the iOS Weather app have been horribly
| unreliable. Sometimes I can zoom in/out and it will/would work
| but it's amazing how often it doesn't.
|
| The Apple app has been even worse than Dark Sky was at this.
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| I'm not a phone user, so the presentation of weather for me
| always tends to look fairly different than anything you'd
| "typically" see on a phone.
|
| That said, I have a hard time imagining how I could improve on
| the data density, clarity and depth of this 10 day forecast,
| customized by me, from wunderground.com
|
| https://imgur.com/5PIiB1h.png
|
| You can see clearly: * 24hr temperature cycles
| * cloud cover vs. sun * wind speeds (with direction)
| * precipitation likelihood and amounts * barometric
| pressure * overall conditions
|
| Note only that, but I can mouseover the display and get per-hour
| specific details for every parameter.
|
| During storm season, with 1 click I can get to the "wundermap"
| which gives me 45-60 mins of storm tracking display, allowing me
| to make my own guess on whether or not a given storm complex is
| going to hit us head on or not, using "local knowledge" to shape
| my conclusion.
| dendrite9 wrote:
| I like that chart, though I wish there would be some
| uncertainty in the lines further out. Sometimes I want a sense
| of the trends, it isn't like I plan 10 days out based on precip
| numbers. Though a range would give me a direction to lean.
| Coordinating with friends who tell me about a chance of rain in
| a week as a reason to alter plans is frustrating.
|
| It looks like the yr.no chart view that I've used on my phone
| for years. I appreciate having the pressure, precip, temp on
| separate but aligned charts to avoid too much density.
|
| Weather representation is hard though. I care about different
| things at different times of year. In the winter: temp,
| freezing line, precip, wind speed/direction, and jet stream
| postion in 4-12 hour increments.
|
| In the summer: temp, cloud cover, thunderstorm chance, precip
| on a 12 hour tto daily level. But I care about wind speed and
| direction on a hourly level for water activities.
|
| In both cases I like an easy way to see the radar/satellite
| images and sometimes the model trends so I can see where precip
| or cloud cover is more or less.
| jollyllama wrote:
| wunderground 10 day is about as good as it gets
| eitally wrote:
| This looks similar to what I designed for myself using
| Meteogram[1].
|
| [1] https://meteograms.com/ (I use the Android app)
| jnmandal wrote:
| Do you mind sharing how you set that forecast UI up?
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| It's 95% them, 5% my choices of what to show. There's a
| customize button just above the right corner of the actual
| display. Click on that, and select what parameters you want
| to see from the 10 options. I chose to show: Cloud, Humidity,
| Chance of Precipitation, Pressure, Temperature, Wind Speed.
|
| Hope that helps. Oh, this is also the "10 day forecast". I
| never use the daily or hourly views.
| Steltek wrote:
| I'm a big fan of Weather Underground's 10 day forecast graph.
| Like Dark Sky, you can see the temperature ebb and flow, plus
| wind speeds, cloud cover, rain percentages (and amounts). One
| chart tells me every aspect of the weather that I need.
|
| Instead of an app, I just have a bookmark on my home screen.
| switchbak wrote:
| Weather underground's 10 day forecast, especially the expected
| precipitation graph is FANTASTIC! I've found it to be very
| reliable for predicting real rainfall amounts for planning
| outdoor activities.
|
| Too bad they don't show it on mobile though!
|
| Does anyone have a recommendation for something similar? The
| usability of the WU app is pretty awful.
| uneekname wrote:
| Oh man I miss Dark Sky. I have yet to find a weather app as good.
| briefsky[0] was recently posted on here and I think I'll try
| using it for a while. Also of note is Pirate Weather[1], a
| weather API in the same style as Dark Sky.
|
| [0] https://briefsky.app/
|
| [1] https://pirateweather.net
| simon_weber wrote:
| briefsky is what I switched to. I found the Open-Meteo feels-
| like numbers to be way off in NYC but Pirate Weather has been
| fine.
| arprocter wrote:
| Thanks - briefsky looks the part, although it's disappointing
| there's no map
| ChrisArchitect wrote:
| Merry Sky (https://merrysky.net/) has replaced Dark Sky for me,
| a homescreen link to the website and it's doing a good job for
| at a glance weather and 'feels like' lookups.
| _emacsomancer_ wrote:
| Also Merry Sky[1], which uses the Pirate Weather API. Open-
| Meteo is also interesting.
|
| [1]: https://merrysky.net [2]: https://open-meteo.com
| flkiwi wrote:
| MerrySky is so good.
|
| Geometric Weather is a fantastic app with the same look and
| feel. Carrot Weather also just (?) added what is effectively
| a "DarkSky mode". It's lovely.
| ezfe wrote:
| The second complaint mentioned in the article:
|
| >Is there anything that has the precipitation graph similar to
| dark sky
|
| The precipitation graph is in the Weather app, so it's unclear
| why this is being included as a complaint about the Weather app?
| iguana_lawyer wrote:
| It is not. If you think it's the same you never used Dark Sky.
| vngzs wrote:
| To find it, you need to know that tapping on the hourly weather
| view gives you the temperature graph. Then you need to click
| the thermostat icon and switch it to precipitation. Only then
| is the information displayed. Once it's onscreen, the
| precipitation graph in the Apple Weather app centers on the
| full day view (with the current time in the middle) rather than
| just the future, which is what most users care about.
|
| That's not the same as putting it front-and-center. Yes, the
| information is there, but the interface design is garbage.
| doctoboggan wrote:
| If rain is forecast in the next hour they put the minute by
| minute graph at the top front and center in the iOS weather
| app.
| phailhaus wrote:
| Not good enough. I'm going to be out for the whole day: do
| I need an umbrella? I want to know that immediately. It's
| such basic information that it needs to be always at hand.
| doctoboggan wrote:
| The app also tells you that. For example at the top of
| the app now I see a message "Rainy conditions expected
| around 3pm"
| skadamat wrote:
| Author here!
|
| There's definitely a taste / opinion component to any
| deep design critique. I think for many (for whom the post
| resonated), the ability to quickly glance at Dark Sky and
| understand relevant weather contextually was THE game
| changer.
|
| It's a hard thing to discuss, because until you've felt
| the experience, it doesn't seem like a "big deal".
|
| Some apps do use text to talk about the current /
| upcoming rain, but showing it visually makes it even
| easier. The ease of use is important because weather apps
| aren't meant to be that interactive (like a game).
| They're meant to be context-sensitive information
| graphics that let you drop in and out very very quickly.
|
| http://worrydream.com/MagicInk/#inferring_context_from_th
| e_e...
| hoffspot wrote:
| Thank you for taking the time to write this article. I
| was disturbed about the shutdown of Darksky because I
| really loved the features of that app and reading your
| article took me on a nice walk down memory lane. Raising
| the discussion here has been not only been cathartic in
| that I now know I have a lot of company for my thoughts,
| but has also provided some alternatives to try to
| recapture the experience. I'm not a big fan of Apple
| Weather and at least now I have some options to explore.
| phailhaus wrote:
| As the author points out, text like that is inferior to
| embedding information in the graphic. The reason is that
| with text, I have to just "hope" that they've handled all
| the cases that I care about, and at the fidelity that is
| relevant to me. With a graphic, this information is
| _always_ available, and combining multiple elements tells
| me more information than a single text snippet can. For
| example: "Oh, it's only going to be drizzly for like an
| hour, I'll be in a meeting around then anyways." That's a
| decision that 'rainy conditions expected around 3pm' does
| not help me with.
| CharlesW wrote:
| > _As the author points out, text like that is inferior
| to embedding information in the graphic._
|
| Apple Weather presents this information in graphical form
| as well. When I open the app, not only is what I need to
| know -- "Rainy conditions expected around 7pm" -- front
| and center, but just below that I can scroll through
| hours with rain percentages, and with another tap I can
| get as much detail as I could want.
| nonfamous wrote:
| And even then, it's often plain wrong. A couple of weeks ago
| it was raining in my area at noon (a flood watch was active!)
| but the precipitation screen showed 0 rain that day, in the
| past and the future.
| random314 wrote:
| Probably internal political maneuvering by the iOS weather app
| team
| mattyokan wrote:
| I really miss Dark Sky. Apple choosing to kill the app was a huge
| mistake IMO. Despite them "integrating Dark Sky features" into
| Apple Weather, I still dislike the user interface and layout of
| Apple Weather in general. Dark Sky was everything I needed for
| weather. Part of me wishes they would listen to complaints and
| bring back the service, but I guess that will never happen.
| bmitc wrote:
| I agree that killing off the standalone app was a mistake. It's
| particularly frustrating as a paid app just up and disappeared.
|
| > Part of me wishes they would listen to complaints and bring
| back the service, but I guess that will never happen.
|
| Is there an instance where Apple listened to customer feedback
| on a scale of less than a decade? It seems to me that their
| usual mode of operation is to completely ignore feedback, and
| then after a decade or so, they come back with some portion of
| it and act like it's a thing they completely invented.
| nixpulvis wrote:
| I'm not sure I completely see the authors point about "Preserving
| temperature magnitudes in ranges", could someone help me
| understand?
|
| Specifically, I don't understand this: "all temperature ranges
| are rescaled to take up the same amount of space in the app.",
| since it seems like both the Dark Sky and Weather.app views use
| pills that don't cover the x axis, as expected.
| skadamat wrote:
| Author here!
|
| I think this image does the best job of showcasing the
| difference: https://i0.wp.com/nightingaledvs.com/wp-
| content/uploads/2023...
|
| In Apple Watch, the min and max values (the numeric values left
| / right of the pills) are all aligned vertically on top of each
| other. In Dark Sky, they aren't aligned because the horizontal
| position is driven by the min and max values _themselves_. This
| is subtle but CRUCIAL for information graphics / software,
| where "glance-ability" is so so important.
| nixpulvis wrote:
| Wait, where is the Apple Watch in this? You mean iOS?
|
| In both screenshots of that image, the horizontal position of
| the pills are driven by the temperature. I don't see the
| difference other than where the min/max label is placed.
| jameshart wrote:
| Dark Sky was okay. As detailed here, it does a great job of
| centering on the actual user needs of weather app users.
|
| Unfortunately, it also demonstrated that _which users_ you focus
| on matters a lot.
|
| Dark Sky is great at answering the weather questions of people
| who live in places where rain showers are short lasting; where
| temperatures range from 'cool' to 'hot'; and where storms are
| infrequent, special events. Basically people whose interaction
| with the weather hinges on 'do I need a jacket?'
|
| You know, northern Californians.
|
| It was a poor fit for people whose weather landscape includes
| frequent storms; snowfall; temperature ranges that go down below
| freezing (seriously - dark sky's temperature graphs _never_
| marked freezing temperatures for some reason); multiple types of
| precipitation; etc.
| tyrfing wrote:
| Disagree. Dark Sky was fantastic in the PNW, where the main
| concerns are just how rainy it will be that day, and the
| approximate high temperatures coming up. Nothing accurately
| forecasts (here) whether it will be freezing or whether
| precipitation will be snow/slush/hail/rain, but other apps like
| Apple's are absolutely horrific at forecasting precipitation
| even a few hours out. Stuff like showing 30% chance of rain in
| 1 hour, clear the rest of the day, when it just rains the
| entire day and the "forecast" continually shows that it will
| stop raining in 30 minutes.
| cauthon wrote:
| > Dark Sky is great at answering the weather questions of
| people who live in places where rain showers are short
| lasting; where temperatures range from 'cool' to 'hot'; and
| where storms are infrequent, special events. Basically people
| whose interaction with the weather hinges on 'do I need a
| jacket?'
|
| > Disagree. Dark Sky was fantastic in the PNW
|
| I think you're actually in complete agreement with OP
| jameshart wrote:
| Right? 'It's not _only_ for Northern California! It works
| fine up as far as Seattle!' is not exactly a refutation of
| my (slightly hyperbolically stated) thesis that Dark Sky's
| human friendliness is not as global as people seem to
| think.
| sizzle wrote:
| When does the temperature drop to freezing and negative
| windchill in PNW like OP mentioned were use cases not
| designed into the app as it is not of the target audience
| with areas of mild weather.
| apendleton wrote:
| I dunno, I live in Washington, DC, which has many of those
| properties (snow, freezing temperatures, heavy thunderstorms in
| the summer), and knowing which ten-minute window in the next
| hour was the least likely to get me soaked if I wanted to pop
| out for coffee was still incredibly useful, and I have yet to
| find a satisfactory replacement. Certainly there were some days
| when the weather was shit regardless and there wasn't a good
| opening, but no app is going to remedy that.
| mason55 wrote:
| I live in the mountains in Colorado and DarkSky was by far the
| best UX for viewing upcoming weather. The way they presented
| projected hourly snowfall was especially good, as was the
| projected snowfall by day.
|
| With Apple Weather, you get a snow icon and a percentage for
| future days. For DarkSky it was an actual projected snowfall
| amounts, which is so much more useful. Are we expecting 2
| inches? Or 20?
|
| On a daily basis, Dark Sky had a great graph of hourly
| projections. Apple Weather has a bar chart with no numbers
| unless you hover on each bar, and it will project 8 hours of
| snow in the hourly view but then the bar chart only shows a bar
| on one hour.
| DHPersonal wrote:
| Try tapping on the icon in Apple Weather to see a graph of
| various elements.
| jameshart wrote:
| I said it was _okay_. Just don't feel like it had the most
| incredible human-centric weather UI that is often touted for
| it.
|
| When I evaluated it, my main concerns were things like 'am I
| gonna have to dig the car out in the morning?' and 'is that
| thunderstorm heading right for me or just to one side?' - and
| those were not things I felt Dark Sky did particularly well.
| The old weatherspark visualizations used to be much better,
| but they seem to have vanished.
|
| Which is fine! Tools can be great for some things and not
| others! I just find it surprising that it is touted as having
| hot weather presentation 'right'. I'm still waiting for
| better.
| azemetre wrote:
| I lived in both Florida and Massachusetts, using DarkSky was
| amazing in both climates. I think your geographical bias is
| more telling than your app usage.
| dontlaugh wrote:
| It was great in the UK, although it doesn't freeze or storm too
| much here either.
| mazork wrote:
| I live in Montreal and I loved Dark Sky. So I'll disagree.
| drcongo wrote:
| UK here where we have all the weather all the time. I also
| disagree.
| jameshart wrote:
| I used to think the UK had all the weather too. Then I
| moved to New England, which still doesn't get _all_ the
| weather, but compared to the UK, feels like the weather is
| turned up to 11.
|
| What the UK has is _changeable_ weather, which is, as I
| say, what dark sky excels at helping you with ('will I need
| me brolly? Or will it blow away?')
| skadamat wrote:
| Author here -- Yeah the "accuracy" of the weather I think
| ultimately can be debated. I think "accuracy" could very
| specific to your geographic area.
|
| Plus, Dark Sky could have switched up their data feeds or
| algorithms to improve this. But it's difficult to teach their
| design approach
| AuryGlenz wrote:
| I disagree. I'm a photographer in Minnesota and getting
| notified when rain was going to start and stop was really handy
| on wedding days. I also had it set to let me know if the next
| day was going to be windy so I could possibly postpone shoots.
| jameshart wrote:
| Yes, rain shower timing is Dark Sky's greatest utility.
|
| I just found it surprising that 'rain will turn to ice
| starting at 7pm' was not also a usecase Dark Sky gave as much
| attention to.
| dmje wrote:
| My wife often asks me "but why would you care about the weather?"
| and I have to say that over the years I've either been ground
| down or simply come to understand her way of thinking. Yes it's
| sort of exciting to see graphs and charts and maps and stuff, but
| really - do I make any decisions based on what my weather app is
| telling me? No. Do I need an alert to tell me it's going to rain
| soon? No.
|
| So, yeh, Dark Sky was beautiful but I'm not sure (for me anyway)
| a weather app is the necessity that many people claim it is.
| pcl wrote:
| I think it depends a lot on where you live. Some places have
| predictable weather (rainy all day, or sunny in the afternoons,
| or whatever) but other places see random storms with no rhyme
| or reason.
|
| In those latter markets, something that tells you it's about to
| rain is super useful.
| dmje wrote:
| I live in the UK. In Cornwall. By the sea. So there's nothing
| whatsoever predictable about the weather round here :-)
| scop wrote:
| Indeed. When I lived in CA, I probably checked the weather
| twice a year. Now that I live in TX, I check the weather
| daily and often multiple times a day! It was a surprising,
| but obvious, change after living most of my life without
| seasons and dramatic weather events.
| [deleted]
| dhimes wrote:
| I get you, but I'm a sailor and a race-committee co-chair.
| Weather is a good chunk of my life!
| burkaman wrote:
| > do I make any decisions based on what my weather app is
| telling me? No.
|
| Do you not ever go outside? I can't imagine not caring about
| the forecast, I make decisions based on it every single day.
| dmje wrote:
| Sure. All the time - I'm a runner, a walker, I have teen kids
| who like walking, we have a dog. But is any of this really
| changed by knowing it's going to rain? Nope. I stick my nose
| out on a morning - if it's cold, I put on a warm coat. If
| it's going to rain, I put on something rainproof. No need for
| an app. Or, sadly, a chart or a graph...
| burkaman wrote:
| How do you know if it's going to rain? And how do you know
| what the temperature will be midday based on how it feels
| in the morning? I'm honestly just curious, these things are
| very variable in all the places I've lived. The presence or
| absence of clouds is not a great predictor of rain, and
| depending on the day it might be 20 degrees warmer in the
| afternoon or 0 degrees warmer.
|
| Obviously I can imagine living without a weather app, but I
| genuinely can't imagine having one but not finding it
| useful. One of the things people loved about Dark Sky was
| not just knowing whether it is or isn't going to rain, but
| that it's going to rain in precisely 35 minutes, I have
| time to bike to the store instead of driving. I used this a
| lot and it was very accurate.
| uptown wrote:
| Do you do anything outdoors? Sports? Hike? Drive? Own a home
| that is affected by storm systems? Commute on transit systems
| that are affected by the changing weather?
| dmje wrote:
| All of that, apart from the transit system thing - we don't
| have a lot of infrastructure where I live :-)
|
| But - am I affected by the weather? Nope.
| genericacct wrote:
| Luckily It was surpassed by merrysky. The integration with
| rainviewer does It for me.
| misnome wrote:
| I really liked Dark Sky for the notifications and rain intensity
| charts. But for me in the central UK the map _never_ worked
| properly for me. Only fragments of the map would load, for some
| of the time range, and the extrapolation parts never worked
| properly.
|
| Unfortunately the new apple weather version seems to have
| inherited exactly the same map flaws.
| cryptoz wrote:
| Well, this is quite a detailed analysis and I don't want to take
| a dump on it because it's obviously a good analysis. BUT.
| Masterpiece? I don't think so. Dark Sky's data visualization was
| all shiny gold and not enough real science.
|
| Their radar map with all those pretty colors was super buggy, so
| much so that you couldn't trust it. If you move the map or zoom
| in, or pan around, the rain / radar data often would not move
| with the map. So you would have a 2x scaling issue with how large
| the rain area was.
|
| Also, they never provided confidence information. They often made
| predictions that were wrong, and never informed you of how
| confident their forecasts were. But they would always show a
| 'flawless' representation of the data so you would be convinced
| it was right.
|
| Yes yes, it was pretty. But it was not backed by science, and the
| data was misrepresented I'd say 100% of the time. You can't have
| a masterpiece of data visualization where a major component of
| the vis is 'looking pretty' and the factualness of it is ignored.
| evilotto wrote:
| Meteorologists seemed to feel that Dark Sky was a graphics
| processing tool, not a weather app.
|
| https://slate.com/technology/2022/12/dark-sky-weather-app-ap...
| trefoiled wrote:
| It's interesting reading this comment, because this perfectly
| aligns with my experience using the app on Android back before
| Apple shut it down. I agree with all of the article's points on
| how intuitive and helpful the UI was, and I haven't been able
| to find a suitable replacement. But the predictions were
| constantly wrong.
| acomjean wrote:
| It has some similarity to the weather overview graphs from
| weather.gov which are my daily driver.
|
| Its just stacked graphs of temperature, humidity, wind, and
| precipitations for 2 days. Shows sunrise/sunset. Its so not
| pretty, but quite effective.
|
| It took a few days, but I got quite good at reading the weather
| from these graphs at a glance.
|
| https://forecast.weather.gov/MapClick.php?lat=42.3761&lon=-7...
| drcongo wrote:
| Brilliant article, but I'm surprised notifications don't get a
| mention, this was the killer feature of Dark Sky for me -
| notifications warning me of imminent rain / storm / snow and
| notifications telling me when it's going to stop and for how
| long. Made living with a dog that hates rain much easier. None of
| this has been brought over to the stock weather app properly,
| that notifies me of maybe one in every hundred rainfalls which is
| completely useless.
| strict9 wrote:
| It _was_ a masterpiece. Apple deleting Dark Sky something I will
| never forgive them for. Maybe not enough to make me switch
| phones, but enough to make me look elsewhere when needing
| peripheral items.
|
| The statement that Dark Sky features were incorporated into the
| native weather app was an insult.
|
| I know I sound dramatic talking about a weather app, but it was
| in a class of its own and nothing else is remotely comparable.
|
| I feel like I lost a friend that I consulted with daily.
| jwestbury wrote:
| Can I just piggyback on this to shit on the iOS Weather app for
| a moment?
|
| Whoever designed it doesn't understand the concept of daily
| max/min temperatures, and the daily low presented in the app is
| the lowest during that calendar day, rather than the forecast
| overnight low following the day. It drives me absolutely mad,
| because I can never reliably determine how cold it will get
| overnight without going into the hourly view (and even that
| could be inaccurate for fast-moving weather systems).
| Spooky23 wrote:
| Companies solve their own problems. Outlook is one of the
| classic examples of that - it was an app that was a cultural
| snapshot of Microsoft.
|
| In the case of Apple, Cupertino is a pretty boring weather
| locale. Sometimes you need to zipper your coat and once in
| awhile it rains.
| reaperducer wrote:
| _In the case of Apple, Cupertino is a pretty boring weather
| locale. Sometimes you need to zipper your coat and once in
| awhile it rains._
|
| Which also explains why iPhone headphone wires get brittle
| in moderately cold weather, and iPhones go into thermal
| shutdown mode at temperatures that are common in places
| like Arizona, New Mexico, Nevada, and the non-Bay Area
| parts of California.
| MetaMalone wrote:
| So true...
| sizzle wrote:
| They get brittle in colder weather? Never heard of this,
| can you explain a bit more?
| daniel_reetz wrote:
| Another example: Corporate HQs have world class internet
| access. No latency high bandwidth connections. If folks
| building lazy loading web interfaces had to use their
| stuff in rural North Dakota, much less outside the US,
| they'd be shocked at how terribly it performs and user-
| hostile it feels.
| athenot wrote:
| They did the same for the weather on the Apple Watch. It used
| to show the _next minimum_ temperature but sometime last year
| it changed to _minimum within calendar day_ , which is just
| about useless.
| 0xfaded wrote:
| To be fair it's only useless 50% of the time
| schiffern wrote:
| If it's useless 50% of the time, it's untrustworthy 100%
| of the time.
| Camillo wrote:
| Here's an egregious UX error in the Apple Weather app: when
| you look at the precipitation map, it animates the situation
| throughout the day, but the current time it's showing is only
| indicated by the cursor in a timeline at the bottom. Your
| location in the center in the map, where you want to look,
| only shows the current temperature and weather: it does not
| animate with the timeline and the rest of the map, and does
| not show the time the map is currently reflecting. So if you
| look at the center of the screen you have no idea what time's
| situation the map is showing, and if you look at the bottom
| you can see the time, but not the situation. You have to stop
| the animation, manually drag the cursor to "now", look at the
| storm pattern, then manually drag it an hour forward, look at
| the map again, etc.
| nonethewiser wrote:
| I'm confused why the daily minimum would include times
| outside the day. That doesn't seem like a daily minimum by
| definition. The way Apple does it is exactly how I assumed it
| would work.
|
| Is the alternative you described standard?
| brewdad wrote:
| It becomes useless when it was 32 degrees at midnight. But
| now, as I sit here on a Thursday morning, it shows the low
| for today as 28 degrees and tomorrow as 40 degrees. What
| will I need to wear Friday morning when I go out? Will it
| be closer to 40 or continue dropping and be closer to
| freezing? Is it safe to put my sensitive plants back
| outside? Perhaps it shows 28 again but is that for early
| Friday morning or late Friday night?
|
| In almost all cases the coldest part of the day is right
| around dawn. That also happens to be the time of day when
| most of us are first leaving the house. That's a pretty
| important piece of information to have and it isn't there
| at a glance.
| nonethewiser wrote:
| > What will I need to wear Friday morning when I go out?
|
| Can't you just check Friday's temps? I'm not sure why
| you'd expect this info out of Thursday.
| sizzle wrote:
| Absolutely this, I think OP has an atypical mental model
| of the daily boundaries of temperature, we've been
| conditioned to think of daily highs and lows from radio
| and local news television forecasts. You can't just look
| at the app in isolation of decades of social conditioning
| that predate the iPhone and weather apps.
| tshaddox wrote:
| > In almost all cases the coldest part of the day is
| right around dawn.
|
| Probably true, and yet the counterexamples are when the
| temperature forecast is _particularly_ important when I
| 'm choosing what to wear. Any simplification of the
| temperature forecast into daily lows and highs will fail
| certain use cases, so I think it's very reasonable to
| make the daily lows and highs as well- and simply-defined
| as possible and provide an hourly forecast so that people
| can also check for the potential edge cases.
| ethbr0 wrote:
| Given that the suns movements are pretty predictable, it
| seems suboptimal to define counter to something that
| happens almost every day.
| tshaddox wrote:
| But the most important weather changes to see forecasts
| for are the ones caused by weather systems moving in
| which are mostly independent of the time of day. Those
| are the ones that catch you by surprise wearing the wrong
| clothes.
| ethbr0 wrote:
| Are they? Freeze warnings are pretty important in large
| parts of the country.
| eli wrote:
| It's very rare that I need to know about what the weather
| was like a few hours in the past.
| nonethewiser wrote:
| Then don't look at past temps.
|
| The daily low is the lowest temp of the day. It could
| very well be in the future. But it's certainly not in the
| next day, and it's not from a specific hour. If you want
| to see tomorrow mornings temps look at tomorrow's hourly
| temps.
|
| Do you expect the daily high to work the same? So maybe
| at 4pm it's down from the daily high and now it shows
| today's high is actually some temp around 3pm tomorrow?
|
| I get what you're saying but in no way is that a daily
| high. More like a next 24 hour high but even then, do you
| want that? That means if it's 80F at 3pm today and 90F at
| 3pm tomorrow and it's 3pm, then the high will be 90.
|
| It's much easier to just accurately categorize these by
| day/hour and let the user find what they care about
| instead of warping definitions to anticipate certain use
| cases.
| sizzle wrote:
| absolutely the radio and local news television forecasts
| have always had daily high and low boundaries, not sure
| what is up with these people's atypical mental models?
| They must not have listened to the news on the radio or
| on television growing up? Why should an app create a UI
| design pattern that goes against the majority of people's
| mental models.
| TheJoeMan wrote:
| Say it says "32F low for saturday". Is it going to freeze
| friday night at 1am (aka sat morning) or sat at 11pm?
| prophesi wrote:
| Yep, Dark Sky's way is standard. Weather.com and the like
| show the next low. Today in my area is actually the perfect
| example, currently ~40f. It shows a high of ~55f and a low
| of ~53f.
|
| Apple's weather app shows a low of ~40f.
| SkyPuncher wrote:
| Oh, that drives me insane. It makes it absolutely useless for
| figuring out how to dress for outdoor activities.
| tshaddox wrote:
| It's interesting you say that, because I have been under the
| impression that weather apps always show daily low
| temperatures based on the calendar day (midnight-to-
| midnight). I've always thought they could be improved by
| showing the overnight low, which you're saying is the case
| for some weather apps. Which ones are those?
|
| It's also worth noting that the midnight-to-midnight scheme
| is a lot more well-defined than the alternative we're both
| advocating. What do you show as the low temperature for today
| if it's currently 3am and the temperature isn't going to drop
| until 3am tomorrow? If that temperature drop is displayed as
| today's low temperature, then I won't be able to discern
| whether it will get cold _during this night_ (i.e. today
| between 1am and 7am) or _the following night_ (i.e. between
| 7pm today and 7am tomorrow). Not to mention that cold systems
| can move in at any time, and it may be much colder at noon
| tomorrow than 3am tomorrow, so in many case "overnight low"
| isn't even what you care about.
| cglong wrote:
| Google's weather feature on Android does this :) They don't
| call it "high" and "low", instead calling it "day" and
| "night".
| tshaddox wrote:
| What if the low temperature is forecast to be at noon?
| ethbr0 wrote:
| Then you live in Antarctica, it's winter, and you're out
| of scope.
| tshaddox wrote:
| Definitely not. It's common in places where the weather
| actually changes due to things other than the time of
| day, i.e. where cold systems move in. For example, look
| at the forecasts in the Chicago area where tomorrow
| (March 23) it's going to be a fair bit colder at noon
| than at 1am. This is not at all uncommon, and is in fact
| precisely why it's important to check the weather
| forecast in the morning on normal days when you're
| deciding what to wear.
| ethbr0 wrote:
| Okay, so Antarctica, Chicago, and Cleveland.
|
| But the broader point is that the utility of an overnight
| temperature is that it happens while most people are
| sleeping, and thus unable to respond to it.
|
| Fluctuations while one is awake can be coped with.
|
| IMHO, the most reasonable intuitive measures would be:
| overnight low, rain during the midnight-to-midnight day
| tshaddox wrote:
| > Okay, so Antarctica, Chicago, and Cleveland.
|
| Really anywhere where temperatures change frequently for
| reasons other than the time of day. Probably the vast
| majority of people who use temperature forecasts in
| consumer weather apps.
|
| > But the broader point is that the utility of an
| overnight temperature is that it happens while most
| people are sleeping, and thus unable to respond to it.
|
| > Fluctuations while one is awake can be coped with.
|
| I couldn't disagree more. Surely the most common use case
| by far for quick checks of the daily forecast is simply
| to decide what to wear when you leave the house in the
| morning. If you're unhoused, or camping, or you work at
| night, or you're a gardener, then of course overnight
| temperature forecasts are also vital.
| cglong wrote:
| It's a good question, and something I was kinda wondering
| too. I see now it's technically written as:
|
| > Day 58deg| * Night 48deg|
|
| Maybe the arrows are used to indicate the high and low?
| roberttod wrote:
| Piggybacking your piggyback, that graph for the temperature
| throughout the day looks pretty but damn terrible UX in
| comparison to dark sky. Hourly temperatures/rain/etc gives me
| everything I need at a glance without having to drag my
| finger to the time I am interested in.
| syntheticnature wrote:
| Worth noting the facet you're criticizing is how Dark Sky did
| it.
| highwaylights wrote:
| Even that notification sound when it's going to rain.
|
| Dark Sky was _magical_. It was the kind of experience Steve
| Jobs used to get giddy about on stage for 20 minutes at a time.
|
| Man I wish they could just hit the undo button on axing it.
| pmarreck wrote:
| I can't delete the icon just yet.
|
| CARROT is OK for "a different kind of weather app", but nothing
| really is the same.
|
| Dark Sky's UI was just... Nice.
| bmitc wrote:
| And it wasn't just how it looked either. Dark Sky was a weather
| app that was actually accurate for what you wanted it for.
|
| It _really_ frustrates me that Apple completely killed off the
| product. I don 't know what their problem is, but it seems to
| me that it would have been no problem to allow the app to
| continue to exist as a standalone one while supposedly
| "integrating" it into whatever Apple's weather app is.
| Lammy wrote:
| > I don't know what their problem is
|
| Here are 195 reasons why Apple bought Dark Sky:
| https://i.imgur.com/5dkofIG.jpg
|
| Have you noticed how many moves they've made to make it easy
| to give up your location privacy to Apple? Emergency SOS is
| the latest one, complete with lots of submarine news articles
| about how OMG It Saved My Life!! This paper has many many
| more examples:
| https://www.scss.tcd.ie/doug.leith/apple_google.pdf
| reaperducer wrote:
| _they 've made to make it easy to give up your location
| privacy to Apple? Emergency SOS is the latest one_
|
| I look forward to your blog post where you detail your
| phone call to emergency services:
|
| 911: 911, what's your emergency?
|
| You: I fell down the stairs and broke my leg. It's gushing
| blood everywhere!
|
| 911: What is your location?
|
| You: Oh, no you don't! I'm not giving my location to
| anyone! You're just gonna have to GUESS where I am!
| Lammy wrote:
| I like how you have to make up a hypothetical story about
| me because you can't say I'm wrong about Apple's pattern
| of data collection :)
| jjulius wrote:
| >I don't know what their problem is, but it seems to me that
| it would have been no problem to allow the app to continue to
| exist as a standalone one while supposedly "integrating" it
| into whatever Apple's weather app is.
|
| Shot in the dark - Apple wants you to live and die within
| Apple's ecosystem, using only Apple products. Doesn't matter
| if they own Dark Sky, it's not "Apple Weather", and that's
| what they want - iThis, iThat, Apple Something, Mac Whatever.
| Dark Sky also didn't look or feel like the rest of Apple's
| products, and they want consistency and are not about to
| redesign the rest of their software line to fit with Dark
| Sky's much-loved UI/UX.
|
| Why redo everything you've done when you can just kill off
| this one little thing and force everyone back over to you?
| jwagenet wrote:
| Counterpoint: the Beats and Shazam brands still exist.
| jjulius wrote:
| Counterpoint: Beats' revenue far eclipses that of Dark
| Sky. Apple recognized that it is its own cash-cow of a
| beast, and purchased them both for the revenue and
| because they could ensure that the product is more
| closely integrated with Apple products.
|
| Shazam, I can only take a stab at this one. Perhaps it's
| a name thing? "Nobody", eg the public at large (so, set
| aside the passionate Dark Sky love you see in this
| thread), gives a shit about weather apps, at least on a
| broad scale. The default option is fine. You don't say,
| "Dark Sky it", you say, "Check the weather". When you
| wanna know what's playing, _most_ people say, "Shazam
| it". Apple and Android integration of this into
| Siri/search came way later, far after "Shazam it" became
| the standard phrase. There's no "obvious" replacement,
| like there is with the default weather app.
| bradleyankrom wrote:
| Whatever model the Weather app uses has been hopelessly
| unreliable and at times downright incorrect. Dark Sky wasn't
| always accurate (no model is), but it seemed to match reality
| more often than not.
| [deleted]
| insane_dreamer wrote:
| Agreed. Very poor decision on Apple's part. They should have
| just rebranded it and kept as is.
| jwcooper wrote:
| To make matters worse, Apple killed off the web version too,
| and didn't replace it with anything.
|
| The Dark Sky website was brilliant as well. It loaded quickly,
| wasn't covered in ads, and the UX was comparable to their app.
|
| I haven't really found anything to replace it with yet. I've
| defaulted to weather.gov, but the UX isn't really there yet
| (it's great for storms, or when you need to drill down into
| good data though).
| creeble wrote:
| Pretty happy with merrysky.net.
| gpm wrote:
| I've gone to windy.com for weather, which really isn't what
| is was meant for, but on a large screen it works fine.
| p_j_w wrote:
| >Apple killed off the web version too
|
| It boggles the mind, doesn't it? The equivalent of a bunch of
| food and housing was spent just so something useful could be
| taken out of half of the population's hands. Just think about
| that, overall social utility decreased and someone spent
| money to make it happen. Absolutely parasitic behavior.
| meandthebean wrote:
| I've switched to Weather Underground 10-day view:
| https://www.wunderground.com/forecast/us/md/baltimore
|
| I used the customize button to remove everything but temp,
| chance of rain and wind.
|
| It's no Dark Sky, but it's something.
| scarface74 wrote:
| Apple also made the underlying API available for both iOS and
| Android. Someone is free to create a similar app.
| screamingninja wrote:
| > free to create a similar app
|
| Only if you sign up for the Apple Developer Program, comply
| with all their rules and expectations, and not be surprised
| if they ban you from using it with no explanation whatsoever.
| scarface74 wrote:
| Yes because out of the millions of app submissions that
| happen every year, you are likely to "be banned" for some
| arbitrary reason that is not spelled out.
|
| That must be why developing iOS Apps is so unpopular with
| developers...
| dotancohen wrote:
| For one thing, from what I understand (I don't develop
| mobile apps, and I don't own an Apple phone) Apple
| forbids applications that provide features already built
| into the phone. That's why even Firefox on iOS is just a
| skin over Safari.
|
| So if Apple Weather (or whatever they call the in-house
| weather app) comes with the phone, then your "same thing
| but different" app will not be made available in the
| Apple app store.
| a2dam wrote:
| Weather is an entire category of apps on the App Store.
| You can develop any weather app you like.
| scarface74 wrote:
| This is also not true. There are plenty of podcast apps,
| weather apps, notes apps, music apps, streaming video
| apps. I can't think of a single bundled app where there
| are not plenty of alternatives.
| chordalkeyboard wrote:
| > That must be why developing iOS Apps is so unpopular
| with developers...
|
| Apple products are popular among consumers and developers
| _in spite_ of their many user-hostile decisions precisely
| because there are few alternatives, all of which have
| substantial disadvantages as well.
| scarface74 wrote:
| So if Apple products are "user hostile" then why are
| enough users happily spending twice as much on iPhones
| and more on Macs to make Apple the most valuable company
| in the world?
|
| Maybe their decisions are only hostile to geeks who want
| to run Linux on the Apple Pencil.
| chordalkeyboard wrote:
| > So if Apple products are "user hostile" then why are
| enough users happily spending twice as much on iPhones
| and more on Macs
|
| They aren't all "happy" about it, but as I mentioned in
| the post you replied to, there is not a decent
| alternative.
|
| > Maybe their decisions are only hostile to geeks who
| want to run Linux on the Apple Pencil.
|
| Certainly not but one would have to be interested in the
| fact of the matter to realize it.
| scarface74 wrote:
| There is an alternative - 85% of phone users choose
| Android.
| chordalkeyboard wrote:
| > 85% of phone users choose Android.
|
| Indeed, seems they are not "happy" to buy Apple.
|
| > There is an alternative
|
| I mentioned this twice, it is also notoriously inadequate
| and user-hostile as well. Do you have anything to add to
| the discussion?
| scarface74 wrote:
| > Indeed, seems they are not "happy" to buy Apple.
|
| Your thesis was that Apple customers were not happy to
| buy Apple products...
|
| > is also notoriously inadequate and user-hostile as well
|
| Your second thesis was there was no decent alternative.
|
| Well, if so many people are unhappy with both iOS and
| Android, I'm sure they can but something like PinePhone.
|
| Or maybe most people don't care about running a full open
| source stack on the Apple Pencil?
| moneywoes wrote:
| Any good alternatives since?
| nofinator wrote:
| I've been using Today Weather on Android ever since Dark Sky
| was killed off there. It looks nice, lots of different data
| sources, and the $7 lifetime Premium Version is a good price.
| schiffern wrote:
| >$7 lifetime Premium Version
|
| I presume you mean the $7 "For as long as the developer
| feels like it" Premium Version.
| eitally wrote:
| fwiw, I paid for a lifetime sub to eHD Weather (by
| Elecont) ... back in 2013 and still use it. Moreover, the
| dev still responds to emails within a couple hours. If I
| can get 10 years of use out of an app for $5, that's
| excellent value!
| jereze wrote:
| https://helloweather.com/
| PenguinCoder wrote:
| My goTos are NOAA.gov and pirateweather.net
| dguest wrote:
| I'm a huge fan of a few government sponsored ones:
|
| - A great simple one is YR: https://www.yr.no/en
|
| - if you happen to be in Switzerland: https://play.google.com
| /store/apps/details?id=ch.admin.meteo...,
| https://apps.apple.com/us/app/meteoswiss/id589772015
|
| Government sponsored apps are great because there's no
| advertising, they aren't selling your data, and they are
| free. They usually pay to collect the data, run the models,
| and provide the API anyway. Providing the app is the cheap
| part.
| snozolli wrote:
| I like Weawow. It's proven accurate regarding weather
| _trends_ , but it tends to be overly dramatic. I'm guessing
| this is related to living in a valley, as the weather to the
| north and south seems to match their forecast better.
|
| It has the data that's indispensable to me: precipitation
| amount per hour. I don't care as much about how likely it is
| to rain, I care about whether I'm going to get sprinkled on
| or drenched.
|
| The wind and weather map is pretty nice.
| eitally wrote:
| I use Weawow, too, but it's UI is very cumbersome in terms
| of getting quickly to what you care about. I have
| Meteograms' widget on my homescreen to get precip/hr and
| the core metrics similar to the wunderground 10 day view,
| but I find it much easier to read a daily forecast
| presented in a more traditional manner so go from Meteogram
| (tactical) to Weawow (strategic) forecasts.
| s0rce wrote:
| If you are in the USA the national weather service is great,
| its not flashy but good and you can read the text forecast
| discussion.
|
| Otherwise
|
| Windy.com and Meteoblue are good.
| workethics wrote:
| https://merrysky.net/ comes pretty close!
| screamingninja wrote:
| https://www.windy.com/
|
| Probably some of the best visualization techniques I have
| seen. Free features cover most use cases; premium gives you
| better resolution.
| dguest wrote:
| Windy is awesome, although a bit overkill if you just want
| to know if it's going to rain in your town later today.
| adql wrote:
| > It was a masterpiece. Apple deleting Dark Sky something I
| will never forgive them for. Maybe not enough to make me switch
| phones, but enough to make me look elsewhere when needing
| peripheral items.
|
| "I hate them so I will only give them a tiny bit less money" is
| why it will never change
| whyenot wrote:
| Ok, let's play this game. I don't like what Apple did to
| Darksky, so I'll switch to Android. What do I do when Google
| inevitably does something similar, who do I switch to then?
| ajmurmann wrote:
| I think a big problem is that there are few choices because
| of constant consolidation. This is reflected in two ways:
|
| a) every big tech company tries to do a ton of stuff. I'm not
| happy with this weather app. Usually the market would reflect
| this by me buying a different weather app. However, Apple
| isn't in the weather app market, they are in the phone and
| computer market. If I buy a different weather app, Apple
| actually gets more money! Buying a different phone because
| Apple made the decision to kill my favorite weather app is
| now muddled in with so many other factors and Apple and their
| shareholders are unlikely to link a drop in phone sales to
| killing the weather app. Now I also need to look at the very
| few real competitors and probably have issues with them as
| well. It's a mess because they all do too much. Maybe I don't
| want Android devices because Google built Bart without
| disclosing training sources. What a mess!
|
| b) someone builds something nice and it just gets killed by
| an incumbant. No real competition between most startups and
| incumbants. It's more like a buyer/seller relation
|
| I'd love to see this all fixed in my utopia by prohibiting
| acquisitions and instead force companies to fight for
| customers. But I'm sure that would need to happen globally to
| avoid putting our own companies at a disadvantage where
| they'll just get their lunch stolen by companies that aren't
| limited like that. I'm also sure this solution has other side
| effects I cannot think of.
| leokennis wrote:
| Give https://weathergraph.app a try - it ticks more or less all
| of the boxes in this article. Only thing missing is the radar.
| camel_gopher wrote:
| It was good enough that I moved from android to iPhone when
| they killed the android version
| Stubb wrote:
| I still haven't forgiven Apple for killing off Aperture.
|
| To date nothing has come close to Aperture's seamless blending
| of image organizing, editing, and metadata enrichment. I'm not
| holding my breath that an app that feels like DarkSky will ever
| come along.
| alecfreudenberg wrote:
| Shout out to FlowX on Android. ( https://flowx.io/ )
|
| The best weather app I've ever used.
|
| Much thanks to the founder Duane & his partner for the ongoing
| development
| screamingninja wrote:
| Not to be sceptical, but here's my initial impression. Try the
| "privacy" link at the bottom of their homepage.
|
| https://flowx.io/privacy/
|
| > Page not found (404) > Request Method: GET > Request URL:
| http://flowx.io/privacy/ > Raised by: wagtail.core.views.serve
|
| > You're seeing this error because you have DEBUG = True in
| your Django settings file. Change that to False, and Django
| will display a standard 404 page.
|
| They tout excellent app UX but the website has a lot of rough
| edges visually.
|
| Again, not discounting their work. I'm still going to install
| and try out, but initial impressions matter.
| duanem wrote:
| Flowx dev here. I'm not sure if the 404 page or the Debug =
| True is the concern?? but there are two privacy pages in the
| help section: https://flowx.io/help/privacy/
| https://flowx.io/help/privacy-policy/
|
| I'm not a fan of website - they have become complex. I'm
| currently looking into static pages as a replacement.
|
| That said, Flowx has many moving parts: app development, data
| servers, data processing, support, forum, website, and
| others. My main focus is app development and probably the
| least focus is the website.
| alecfreudenberg wrote:
| Good eye! I added this to their bugs forum.
|
| I believe they are still a team of one, and have focused on
| app progress and efficiency at the expense of bugs & loose
| ends that would typically be handled in a larger organization
| with dedicated teams for that sort of thing. I bet they would
|
| Personally I find it charming. That is until I run into a
| security issue.
|
| I can't speak for Flowx though.
| duanem wrote:
| I've actually already looked into the DEBUG=True issue just
| now. Setting it to false causes an "Internal Server Issue".
|
| So do I spend hours looking for a fix, look into replacing
| it with a static pages site (I'm thinking Hugo) or just go
| back to porting Flowx to Apple :-)
| clawlor wrote:
| > Never deploy a site into production with DEBUG turned
| on.
|
| -
| https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/4.1/ref/settings/#debug
|
| Setting DEBUG = False doesn't cause in Internal Server
| Issue. The issue is caused by something else, having
| DEBUG = True just means Django will return a detailed
| error page, instead of a generic 500 error page.
|
| IIRC, DEBUG = True also used to leak memory, which
| doesn't matter so much for local development, where it's
| intended to be used.
| duanem wrote:
| I changed DEBUG = False and I get an "Internal Server
| Error" - you can check it now while I have a quick go at
| finding the cause.
|
| I want to try static page generators (Hugo) instead since
| they are easier to maintain. So it's a prioritization
| question - do I spend time fixing this bug or spend the
| time on migrating.
| chrisweekly wrote:
| Dark Sky was great, and I agree w other commenters about the
| shortcomings of the default iOS Weather app.
|
| That said, if you're interested in terrific weather info and
| dataviz, I heartily recommend Windy.app.
| egypturnash wrote:
| I have moved from Dark Sky to Weather Strip:
| https://www.weatherstrip.app
|
| It does a really nice job of showing me most of what Dark Sky
| showed, in a similarly easy-to-glance-at format once I spent a
| little time learning to read its graphs.
|
| I think Carrot Weather has a lot of graphs directly ripped off
| from Dark Sky but the constant attempts to upsell me to a
| subscription plan while I was playing with it really turned me
| off, as did the "what political alignment would you like the
| sweary forecast to have" switch.
| jp191919 wrote:
| This looks like a nice option, but no android app
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| I use the National Weather Service and added a shortcut to my
| home screen.
| b555 wrote:
| what's the page you are using to replicate dark sky's
| capabilities exactly?
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| forecast.weather.gov
| empedocles wrote:
| I am a big fan of https://merrysky.net/ which is explicitly
| trying to copy/rescue from the grave the Dark Sky look.
| bobbylarrybobby wrote:
| Hey, me too. Once I downloaded Weather Strip I had trouble
| understanding how its display methodology wasn't just the
| standard across weather apps -- I was hit with a serious "wait,
| why isn't everything like this?" moment. I'd never seen another
| app that makes the weather so quickly grokkable.
| leokennis wrote:
| I'm a big fan of https://weathergraph.app since the Pebble
| days. It's the same concept, but if I'm honest better designed
| than Weather Strip.
| dczot wrote:
| Nice thanks for the iOS rec. I've been a big fan of FlowX
| (https://flowx.io/) on Android which has had a similar
| graph/visualization with the addition of also having a radar
| view.
| duanem wrote:
| BTW, I'm in the process of porting Flowx to Apple. It's not
| as complete as the Android version but it's in beta testing
| if you'd like to join. Just message me and I can send an
| invite.
| dcre wrote:
| Thank you, I love it. Weather Underground has something
| similar, but this has the potential to get a lot better.
| polyterative wrote:
| Forecaster for Android shares some good ideas with this
| cmason wrote:
| I've replaced Dark Sky with Windy but, although Windy is quite
| good, it doesn't answer the same questions that Dark Sky answered
| quickly (and the article does a good job of pointing out these
| questions).
|
| https://www.windy.com/
| yreg wrote:
| The article makes it sound like Apple just used Dark Sky as a
| backend and threw everything else away.
|
| In fact it seems that they inspired heavily from Dark Sky's UI as
| well. In my opinion iOS now has a very clever and polished
| Weather app that contains many of the features mentioned in the
| article.
|
| Some screenshots: https://imgur.com/a/GYP3ym8
| expensive_news wrote:
| You're correct. I used Dark Sky for years and switched to the
| default iOS app when Apple bought Dark Sky and added all of the
| functionality to Weather.
|
| I did prefer the design of Dark Sky, since the data was larger
| and more visually separate from the background, allowing it to
| be more readable at a glance. But I found that after the big
| update they had essentially the same functionality and the same
| UI.
| pasc1878 wrote:
| It is not the same UI
|
| It might be functionally the same e.g. It only shows
| conditions for the next 5 hours - not all day - how can you
| tell if you need a raincopat if you go ot. I am on an iPhone
| in portrait mode. DarkSky showed this as a column of data
| Weather as a row. This is fundamental to the whole UI.
| skadamat wrote:
| Author here -- Apple was definitely inspired by Dark Sky
| but IMO it's hard to argue that it's a replacement.
|
| If you compare the # of clicks it takes and the amount of
| time it takes to interpret information for the same task
| for Dark Sky vs the Apple Weather app, it becomes clear
| that the Apple Weather app "isn't quite there yet". But I
| hope it will be soon!
|
| If your needs are straightforward, then the Weather app is
| a pretty good replacement.
| stronglikedan wrote:
| I really miss Dark Sky, but MyRadar has been pretty good to me in
| its stead.
| IBCNU wrote:
| Oh, great, yet another UI masterpiece swallowed by the insatiable
| maw of refinement culture at Apple. "Dark Sky" app was only a
| weather app, but it looked goth. It was our weather app, and it
| was beautiful in its simplicity. Now we're left with the soulless
| husk that is Apple Weather. But hey, why not? Let's strip away
| every last shred of uniqueness and character in the name of
| "refinement." Sigh. Guess I'll just go back to waiting for my
| bones to ache for my forecasts.
| dang wrote:
| Can you please not fulminate on HN? You may not owe big-
| corporate app-suppressers better, but you owe this community
| better if you're participating in it--we're trying for
| something else here.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| dang wrote:
| Related - all the way back to a Show HN in 2011 (and see also
| https://news.ycombinator.com/posts?id=thegrossman):
|
| _Show HN: Briefsky - a free Dark Sky clone for multiple weather
| APIs_ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34972839 - Feb 2023
| (71 comments)
|
| _Apple blundered when it killed off Dark Sky_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34663534 - Feb 2023 (1
| comment)
|
| _Apple finally killed off the beloved Dark Sky weather app
| today_ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34207668 - Jan 2023
| (7 comments)
|
| _Apple Shutting Down Popular Weather App 'Dark Sky' Tomorrow_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34198207 - Dec 2022 (62
| comments)
|
| _DarkSky: The World's Best Terrible Weather App_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34178827 - Dec 2022 (1
| comment)
|
| _Show HN: Merry Sky, Dark Sky replacement and merry-timeline
| open source lib_ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34155191
| - Dec 2022 (15 comments)
|
| _Dark Sky users can use the Apple Weather app_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34142868 - Dec 2022 (24
| comments)
|
| _Dark Sky Removed from iOS App Store Ahead of Upcoming Shutdown_
| - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33893850 - Dec 2022 (3
| comments)
|
| _Ask HN: Dark Sky EOL, Which weather app do you like?_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33153663 - Oct 2022 (5
| comments)
|
| _Dark Sky iOS app will no longer work from Dec 31_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32817555 - Sept 2022 (301
| comments)
|
| _Dark Sky EOL: 1 /1/2023_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32816725 - Sept 2022 (2
| comments)
|
| _In wake of Apple acquisition, Dark Sky ends Android support_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24049906 - Aug 2020 (21
| comments)
|
| _Ask HN: Best Dark Sky Replacement for Android_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24030412 - Aug 2020 (5
| comments)
|
| _Ask HN: Dark Sky is gone. How can it be rebuild sustainably?_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24023151 - Aug 2020 (5
| comments)
|
| _Dark Sky Joins Apple_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22753192 - April 2020 (2
| comments)
|
| _Apple acquires Dark Sky_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22739839 - March 2020 (576
| comments)
|
| _Dark Sky App is finally available on Android_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11684938 - May 2016 (1
| comment)
|
| _Dark Sky has a new owner_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8875478 - Jan 2015 (55
| comments)
|
| _Forecast - Worldwide Weather Forecasts From the Makers of Dark
| Sky_ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5446134 - March 2013
| (45 comments)
|
| _Dark Sky Version 2.0 (with sales figures)_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4382638 - Aug 2012 (1
| comment)
|
| _We just launched an API for down-to-the-minute rain
| predictions_ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4009349 - May
| 2012 (1 comment)
|
| _Dark Sky - Weather Prediction, Reinvented_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3186978 - Nov 2011 (79
| comments)
|
| _Show HN: Dark Sky, reinvented Weather Prediction and Radar
| Visualization_ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3163426 -
| Oct 2011 (2 comments)
| cryptoz wrote:
| Another Dark Sky thread, another opportunity to ask the community
| if anyone knows about Apple doing research with the barometers in
| their phones. Dark Sky claimed they 'did' but they never expanded
| on what that meant for them. Did they actually use the barometer
| data collected from the app? Or did it just get sent to /dev/null
| as I suspect?
|
| And if Apple bought that code, did they use it themselves? Is
| Apple doing anything to improve weather forecast accuracy in the
| main weather models by running data assimilation on cleaned
| barometer data?
|
| If not it is such a wasted opportunity that I just get so angry
| about. If so....please tell us more.
| withinboredom wrote:
| I suspect barometer data from phones would be junk unless you
| can correlate it with other data. The phone's barometer is
| sensitive enough to detect the pressure difference (altitude
| change) of a few cm. That makes it extremely noisy for
| detecting slow moving metrics like the weather.
| cryptoz wrote:
| Yes, but, significant work was done at an academic level
| between 2011 and 2017, researchers at universities, grad
| student projects, etc, that resulted in usable data being
| extracted. I worked on this problem for ~10 years off and on.
| It is absolutely doable.
|
| Especially since you don't actually _need_ raw pressure data
| to be useful. Pressure rate of change over time is still
| useful and produces improved accuracy in some local
| forecasts.
|
| But not only that, the researchers at UW under Cliff Mass
| found that you can do on-device ML to clean the quality of
| the data, remove errors, and live-adjust to MSLP on-device,
| without even needing the dense network of sensors nearby for
| error correction.
|
| It's 100% doable, but it just takes some hard science and
| effort.
|
| > That makes it extremely noisy for detecting slow moving
| metrics like the weather
|
| Yes, but, the noise problem was solved half a decade ago.
| withinboredom wrote:
| Huh. This is why I love HN. I didn't know about that but
| looking up these papers to see if this approach would be
| useful to some other stuff I'm working on with similar-ish
| noise problems that conventional algorithms aren't working
| for.
| cryptoz wrote:
| Best of luck! Here's one paper I referenced for a
| starting point, may be the most useful one (not
| sure..been a while..) https://journals.ametsoc.org/view/j
| ournals/atot/35/3/jtech-d...
| InitialLastName wrote:
| Not really?
|
| A 10cm change in elevation at sea level results in a 0.0001%
| change in atmospheric pressure [0]. On the other hand,
| weather-relevant pressure changes operate on scales of ~0.1%
| [1]. By my math, a small weather-relevant pressure change
| would be equivalent of someone changing their elevation by
| 100 meters.
|
| Additionally, on a modern phone the barometric data can be
| adjusted against the accelerometer and GPS to mitigate
| changes in elevation (especially relative to, as you say, a
| slow-moving measurement).
|
| [0] https://www.mide.com/air-pressure-at-altitude-calculator
| [1] https://barometricpressure.app/content/understanding-
| high-lo...
| withinboredom wrote:
| Why say "not really" when you can simply test this yourself
| with a sensor dumping app. Planes have been using this
| technology for about a hundred years with accuracy down to
| the foot.
|
| It isn't the GPS or position of the device you need to
| correlate, its trustworthy data. Is the device on an
| elevator, or did the pressure actually drop?
| volandovengo wrote:
| Does anyone know why apple acquired them just to shut it down?
|
| It doesn't seem like the weather data was unique - what was
| unique was its user focussed design.
|
| To acquire it just to shut it down would have only made sense to
| me had they actually folded the design of dark sky into their
| weather app and put their founders in charge of the app. Doesn't
| seem like that happened
| skadamat wrote:
| The Dark Sky API was very popular, and at the time many weather
| apps on iOS did sketchy things with people's data. I sensed
| that Apple maybe wanted to provide a free weather API for
| weather apps to make it easier for anyone to make a weather
| app.
| drcongo wrote:
| The weather data actually was pretty unique in that a lot of
| the rain / snow predictions were based on visually analysing
| the satellite imagery. I'd understand buying it just for that
| reason, but to then seemingly leave that out of the stock
| weather app seems bizarre. (I'm guessing they haven't ported
| that to the stock app as the stock app is dreadful at
| predicting imminent rain)
| ianburrell wrote:
| Did Apple include the local weather prediction in their app?
| That was the other impressive part of Dark Sky. The combination
| of prediction and design was why Dark Sky was so good.
|
| I use Android and never used the nice app, but used the
| predictions in other apps. Knowing when it was going to rain
| was really handy. Apps now their own predictions but not as
| good.
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