Apple Acquires Dark Sky

Adam Grossman on the Dark Sky blog:

Today we have some important and exciting news to share: Dark Sky has joined Apple.

Part of me wonders what took so long. Dark Sky is simply an outstanding app and service — I’ve been a devoted fan from the get-go in 2012 and have written about Dark Sky many times.

For now, the iOS app remains available (and is still sold for $4). The Android app and website will stop working on July 1. As for their API service:

Our API service for existing customers is not changing today, but we will no longer accept new signups. The API will continue to function through the end of 2021.

That’s a generous grace period. But to my knowledge there is no other service like Dark Sky’s, and it powers a lot of apps, including the excellent Carrot Weather and Weather Line (my personal favorite) apps. Dark Sky is also the weather provider for DuckDuckGo and Yelp.

I’m hoping that Apple has acquired Dark Sky not merely to beef up the built-in iPhone Weather app (Apple has no first-party Weather app for iPad or Mac, curiously), but to add hyperlocal weather forecasting APIs to its OSes. This would add a competitive advantage for iOS and MacOS both in terms of weather and privacy. Third-party weather apps are notorious for abusing location privileges.

★ Tuesday, 31 March 2020