Extra! Extra! Apple buys Dark Sky, which means Apple Weather could be getting a lot smarter!
This is great news for Apple fans—but not so much for Android users.
Dark Sky made its debut on Android four years ago this May. It will now close its shutters forever to Android on 1 July. Unsurprisingly, a flurry of social media posts appeared soon after this news, with Android users expressing their discontent at losing their beloved weather app.
If you’re not familiar with Dark Sky, you might wonder about all this fuss over one lousy weather app. Let me explain why, exactly, this is such a big deal for everyone involved.
Dark Sky made a name for itself in the weather app category for its accurate, up-to-the-minute predictions of weather changes. It provides detailed 24-hour and 7-day forecasts. You can even drag your fingers over the time on the temperature and precipitation global map to see when storms will arrive or when the day will turn hot. The app is so specific that you can figure out whether to take that 10-minute walk or not, especially if the app says it won’t rain for 20 minutes. You can even report weather conditions from within the app!
See how Apple Weather’s predictions fall short here? It lacks a live radar and reports on precipitation chance for anything but the current day. So the acquisition can mean only good things for Apple’s Weather app and, of course, for Dark Sky as well (We all gotta make that bread).
Dark Sky made the announcement in a blog post on 31 March 2020:
Our goal has always been to provide the world with the best weather information possible, to help as many people as we can stay dry and safe, and to do so in a way that respects your privacy,” Dark Sky co-founder Adam Grossman writes in the post. “There is no better place to accomplish these goals than at Apple. We’re thrilled to have the opportunity to reach far more people, with far more impact, than we ever could alone.
While Dark Sky will continue to exist on iOS for the foreseeable future, its best features will likely be subsumed into the stock Apple Weather app. Are you as excited as we are? Let us know in the comments below!
