12 votes

Dark Sky delays shutdown of Android app until August 1st

6 comments

  1. [5]
    vord
    Link
    Bleh. Never been an Apple fan, but this is a shitty move no matter which tech giant did it. They bought a service, cut off a ton of users and are cutting off API access (the best feature for home...

    Bleh. Never been an Apple fan, but this is a shitty move no matter which tech giant did it.

    They bought a service, cut off a ton of users and are cutting off API access (the best feature for home automation) to turn it into another value-add on their locked-in ecosystem.

    Like what would the outrage be if Google bought Spotify and cut out all non-Google users.

    Getting good weather data on the cheap is getting harder and harder.

    16 votes
    1. [2]
      Grzmot
      Link Parent
      I heard that for the US folks Dark Sky was pretty good, luckily enough in Europe it wasn't that great so I never used it. But yeah it's a shitty move on Apple's part. But hey, that's capitalism...

      I heard that for the US folks Dark Sky was pretty good, luckily enough in Europe it wasn't that great so I never used it. But yeah it's a shitty move on Apple's part. But hey, that's capitalism baybee.

      Problem with weather is, it's hard to to sell it as a service to people because people are used to using it for free. But a weather app is a service. You have constant server costs and API call costs you need to cover.

      4 votes
      1. mat
        Link Parent
        I'm in the UK and I use Dark Sky a lot on the web, never used the app. For very short-term forecasts, rain radar and so on, it's always been pretty good for me. Anyone know a good replacement...

        I'm in the UK and I use Dark Sky a lot on the web, never used the app. For very short-term forecasts, rain radar and so on, it's always been pretty good for me.

        Anyone know a good replacement website which works in a similar way? I used Weather Underground too and that's OK but it's hard to get radar info and map-based forecasts.

        Also I always thought Dark Sky's emoji overlay was the most brilliantly stupid thing.

        1 vote
    2. [2]
      knocklessmonster
      Link Parent
      Shadow Weather is a pretty nice alternative. It's free, with a paid option.

      Shadow Weather is a pretty nice alternative. It's free, with a paid option.

      2 votes
      1. Omnicrola
        Link Parent
        Oh that's much better than the app I was using, thanks for that.

        Oh that's much better than the app I was using, thanks for that.

        1 vote
  2. zptc
    Link
    Dark Sky has a 6 day forecast widget, which is the part I used the most by far. Any other app have something similar?

    Dark Sky has a 6 day forecast widget, which is the part I used the most by far. Any other app have something similar?