Apple buys Dark Sky weather app
Apple has bought weather app Dark Sky, which is highly regarded for its radar maps and accuracy of its hyperlocal, by-the-minute weather predictions. It’ll still be available on the iOS App Store, as you might expect, but the Android and Wear OS versions will shut down on July 1st. You’ll no longer be able to download the app on those platforms, and people who are still subscribed to the service when Dark Sky pulls the plug will receive a refund.
Dark Sky’s forecasts, maps and embeds will keep working on the web until July 1st. The website will stay online after then “in support of API and iOS App customers.” As for the API, it’ll remain active until the end of next year, but Dark Sky won’t let anyone else sign up.
“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,” the Dark Sky team wrote in a blog 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.”
It seems likely Apple will use Dark Sky’s know how to bolster its own Weather app. Apple has used data from Yahoo (which is owned by Engadget’s parent company Verizon) and The Weather Channel to power the app over the years.
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