Comment by treesknees
1 day ago
The Apple Weather app has gotten better over time, though it’s still not a perfect replacement.
Scrolling through the Dark Sky screenshots, I can recognize many of the same things now incorporated with Apple’s. And Apple does offer location specific notifications of rain which I find to be pretty accurate, about as accurate as Dark Sky.
There’s largely a perception problem with Apple. People loved Dark Sky as an independent small app that worked well, before Apple took it and destroyed it. Now, even if Apple incorporated all of the same data and features, it still wouldn’t give that same spark of joy people had.
I still think DarkSky made it easier to visualize the day. With Apple, when I tap on a day to see the details, the temperature and rain forecasts are in two separate graphs, instead of being unified into one easily glanceable view.
This is what I really liked about DarkSky. I didn’t have to read and understand the forecast, I could simply glance at it and intuitively have an understanding of the day’s weather. Apple lost this, and I think it is what gave DarkSky so much value.
I designed https://weather-sense.leftium.com to make it easier to visualize both the day and week.
Even without any text labels, you should be able to get a feel for what the weather is and how it will change:
- Hourly plots like Dark Sky, with everything (temperature, rain, AQI, weather conditions) in a single plot.
- The change in temperature visualized with both color and space. Space is obvious (higher -> hotter); color ranges from red for hottest to blue for coldest. All the visible plots share the same color-temperature mapping. So the gradient block to the left shows both the temperature range for that day as well as how it compares to other days.
- Finally, there is a weekly overview at the top.
> still not a perfect replacement
Not a replacement at all for Android subscribers!
Dark Sky was one of my favorite apps. MyRadar Pro is probably the best replacement, but it’s missing some of the core features.
I find Apple weather incredibly frustrating… I keep wanting to use it like I used dark sky, but it’s just not there… And I still don’t think it’s as accurate. At least not in Europe. I remember with dark sky being able to know if it’s rain, and for how long it will continue raining to the minute
I really like Ventusky and Windy.com
Huge bag of data for you to mess around with. I've started to use it to do my own weather forecasting instead of relying on forecasting services. Where I live has a radar gap(Oregon) and ridiculously varied terrain, so forecasts aren't great anyway.
> The Apple Weather app has gotten better over time
Interesting, I think it's gotten worse over time. Even basics like what the temperature will be in a few days. It's consistently ~5+ degrees off on the low side.