The Great Apple "Dark Sky" Ripoff...
 

I'm a big fan of Apple products. My next phone will be an Apple, and bla, bla, bla.

But...

I got mad at the Accuweather ap and deleted it a while back. The ads and interuptions were driving me nuts. So I "bought" the Dark Sky weather app knowing that when the app is free, "i am the product" and all that jazz.

It worked great, it argued with the weather app built in the phone, but by the time the day rolled around, they pretty much agreed. And it had a decent radar.

Then, a few months ago it died. Apple says they combined it with the app built into the phone, so to just use that one. But the radar was different, in fact it now stinks. So, I deleted the shortcut, because it didn't work now anyhow. Which made me realize, my money was gone, the app was gone and now I need another weather app with a decent radar.

Still feels like a ripoff...

Murphy, I’m a big fan of Ventusky. Here is a link to check it out.

https://www.ventusky.com/?p=33.9;-10...13&w=0hdKtpv2A

I'm a big fan of the WeatherBug app. The free version with ads isn't too bad but I splurged for the $10/year plan.

I'm another that misses Dark Sky. The Apple app (at last available on the iPad!) doesn't give me what I want to see more often as well as Dark Sky.

I bike and am otherwise outside a fair amount. Weather apps on portable devices are most used apps for me.

I want to know, how soon it's going to rain etc and how much, and is the temperature/wind going to be changing in the next few hours. Apple weather tries to do this, but it still doesn't seem to present this info as well as Dark Sky. And yes, the radar view isn't great either.

Apple too often likes to think they can something better, but they bought the better app (IMHO) and killed it.

Not available on smartphones or iPad, but I prefer the Windows Weather app to the Apple one.

Yes, I know there are many paid weather app alternatives for IOS. Someday I'll take a break from griping and try some out.

The warnings of Dark Sky changes were over a few years and final shutdown warning much of last year. I wanted to be upset but knew better.

It's still all plus more in their new weather app but I'm not a fan of drilling into the screens. The new Weather is better for longer term forecasts but still has the hyperlocal stuff. They disclose the data sources and there are tutorials.

Still, Dark Sky was best for short-term knowledge. I think the $ few I spent were worth the entertainment and utility. Rant over LOL.

Yes to Ventusky being fantastic but it is a different animal. Foreca is often most accurate in a lot of places. The European apps have or can have an edge because the main European weather modeling has gotten ahead of the US.

Real Earth is interesting for weather nerds and they have an app but you have to understand what it really is - 200+ data layers you can put on a Google Maps basemap.

https://realearth.ssec.wisc.edu

Something funny about the weather, water and climate data stuff is our ski club has active and retired scientists from the university who did or do work in that Real Earth project, and the main USGS water office and data center many people use is near so I am often in really fun interesting conversations on this stuff. Especially when they chat with a friend who does data visualization for sewage matters! I did a 160 mile bike ride with 3 of them LOL for constant fun nerdy stuff at my ears.

The site https://www.forecastadvisor.com is worth a visit. They rank data source and app accuracy long and short-term for where you might live.

For those who love this stuff make sure you know UC Irvine precipitation project (iRain) and, U of Nebraska's drought monitor, and OPENSNOW for skiers and snowboarders.

Odd.

They never warned me.

They just killed it and kept my money...

I look at weather on my laptop, so my way of looking might be irrelevant
to you phone people :) but google "weather city-name" and get the
little google weather app at the top.

Change "weather city-name" to "weather city-name radar" and click on accuweather.

https://hubcapsc.com/misc/weather.jpg

There's a lot of google hate out there, I like google. I like the surprising little
apps from them that come up at the top of lots of google searches. Want to
fly from Greenville to San Francisco? google "gsp sfo" and start manipulating
the little app at the top of the page...

anywho... :)

-Mike

The warning was repeated over a few years. I recall in 2021 when they put off the shutdown. It was displayed on web and in app much of last year. They had announcements on the delay to both aid developers and customers. The API isn't shut down yet for those who were not able to meet deadlines.

I'm not happy it's gone but can only wish others in my IT career handled it as well. Apple, Cisco and Microsoft are usually good about this. Same for Google in a different style - there's a messaging system joke in that one.

Weather Underground has been my go to for a while. Accurate and clear.

Why not cut out the middleman and just look at NOAA? After all, that is where all these other apps actually get their information.

Like this:
https://forecast.weather.gov/MapClic...5#.Y9xiZ_jMKJA

I mostly use NOAA for our outdoor field work. Sometimes I skip over to Weather Underground for a better screen interface.

One matter for NOAA is the European model is often more accurate than US. It's an unfortunate situation we should not discuss in detail but be glad the data is available all over. Beyond the data itself, NOAA doesn't have as much or easy reporting and visualization if you are not pretty into this stuff.

Weather Underground was a Michigan offshoot now an IBM subsidy that complements their other products with the crowd-sourced data. One can get premium version to cut the ads and get a longer range in-app forecast.

The US and European main data sources are easily available but lots of services, apps and some individuals put it in easier packages. The UW (Wisconsin) Real Earth effort is a fairly easy way to put those layers on a Google basemap.

There are some very good ag industry services and apps with all this data but usually priced for professionals or in simple free demo apps.

For sort of a tutorial.... A lot of snowmobile and snow sports people follow John Dee who also has his Snow Church on YouTube The way he moves through screens can be helpful for amateurs to learn using the models.

@birdsong I don't know what you mean by fieldwork, but I've found some of the Real Earth layers great for not exactly weather and climate matters. I use the desktop browser version to better understand what the layers are and at times use those layers in the mobile app.

If any of you love this stuff and ski or snowboard, OPENSNOW is really good in a few ways. First are data visualization and UI prowess plus convenient packaging of the sources. The regional people for daily commentary are very good. A 4 seat subscription among friends and family is fun.

Tis true :up: ...

I don't use NOAA because I like how others (google in my case) represent
the information. I think NOAA hired some guy who last built a webpage
on yahoo in 1990 to do their web page...

-Mike

I don't mind the UI matters as much as important segments such as food, defense and transport in my country more and more relying on ECMWF over US models.

Hey, thanks for the tip. I find most of the weather apps a bit contradictory, but the ones with the radar option are at least helpful.