Comment by bmitc
3 years ago
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.
>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?
Counterpoint: the Beats and Shazam brands still exist.
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.
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.
> 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
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!
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 :)