I’ve been using Dark Sky for a while now, and it’s one of the most useful apps on my phone (and watch). It provides minute-to-minute precipitation alerts, and great radar and weather forecasting. Today they released a new, redesigned version of the app that can even use your phone’s pressure sensor to crowd-source better weather data. It’s pretty amazing!
@binoyxj From what I understand the down-to-the-minute weather notifications only work in the US and the UK due to the difficulties of accessing weather data elsewhere. But they really do work!
@giordanobd Just checking if they validate the data outside the US and UK. All US and UK sources listed here, hence that question http://forecast.io/raw/. But then they are introducing 'Crowd-Sourced Weather Reporting' in this version, which is a welcome addition http://blog.forecast.io/dark-sky-5/
@giordanobd Ok! Stumbled upon this old post on their blog explaining the quality of data around the world. So it's high-res (+hyperlocal down-to-the-minute forecasts) in the US and UK and low-res elsewhere http://blog.forecast.io/the-fore...
arrrr. i tried to submit yesterday i PH says the link was already submitted long ago with the original version. Not clear to me how PH should work for major service updates
I'm really curious how much time notice do you get? True story, yesterday I was outside doing some PR, & it rained heavily on me. I didn't have an umbrella, and had no warning as it was about 11pm at night. In less than ten minutes, I was completely saturated. Your app would of prevented that.
@giordanobd@iamwormify Nice! You should consider partnering with sporting events, and TV sites that broadcast the weather. I'm sure reporters would dig it, especially if they're outside and it's about to rain (a lot of expensive equipment).
@iamwormify One more thing, market it in Asia. Countries like Korea, which get 'Acid Rain' would be a very big opportunity. Most people in Asia do not like the rain. If you need any help with translations - Email me at lukejamesfitzpatrick@gmail.com - I can get my wife to help you out, she speaks Korean & Chinese fluently.
I love Dark Sky - I can say with absolute certainty that I open it 830 (or 832) times a year at a minimum. Sometimes it feels like 830 times a day...
I feel slightly lost when I'm not in the UK and the data is a little less immediate.
I quite like the new UI. The report functionality is nice. The new hourly view is far more useful and easy to understand than the previous version. I wonder if activating and sharing the pressure sensor data will have any impact on battery life?
For me, this is a must have app.
Being able to have a visual display of the next hours chance of rain is a lifesaver. Doubly so in London. Would rather access the next day by gesture. Having the focus on the immediate forecast would help to distinguish Dark Sky from the competition.
http://forecast.io have great data. The UK's http://www.metoffice.gov.uk have excellent data but are really lacking a decent way to make it engaging.
I remember the time I fell in love with this app. I was at the beach, was bright and sunny. Alert said "Rain starting in 5 minutes", called BS on it but used it as an excuse to get the little one to go get lunch. We walked inside the pizza place as it downpoured. While eating another alert came in saying "Rain will be stopping in 7 minutes, starting again in 15". Ended up just going from the pizza shop to the car -- just as it started raining again. Completely sold me on the product.
I love the app and use it everyday!
It's a blessing that it works both in the US and the UK, as I spend 90% of my year in those two countries.
I loved the simplicity of v1, and I honestly feel they never got it completely right again. The UI doesn't really feel right to me, and I think the today's widget is a missed opportunity—a line of text is not really enough, when graphics could convey much more in the same space (there's a minimum height for today's widgets in any case).
Nevertheless, it's the one app I would never delete from my iPhone, especially living in London.
I love this app in the US, but since moving abroad it doesn't work as well as other weather apps. The EU may not be the target market, and perhaps there is a tech issue with the radar and other data sources Dark Sky uses, but it'd be great to see coverage here and around the globe.
@skylerwshaw Yeah. They told me that getting radar access from governments was time-consuming and difficult, and they can’t do much without that data. But yeah, it’s awesome in the US.
There's so much to love about this app, and I really like the fact that the makers continue to change things around, trying to optimize UI ever more. That said, I don't love the new first screen graphic. It's useful, to be sure, but it's not what I want to see first: it's redundant to what's open-able on the second screen, and I miss the old graph showing predicted rainfall at my location in the next hour. Nevertheless, this is a must-have app that keeps evolving in productive ways.
@mcandrew Couldn't agree more - I miss that first graph. Showing the vertical display is a little redundant, and feels like an unnatural way to display time. Of course many calendars show the hours as a stacked column, but that's generally in the context of a horizontal week.
I love the app, but on the whole I think the navigation is poor. The main paradigm is four horizontal-scrolling screens (though you don't begin on screen 1), but the globe view (screen 1, which you swipe into) cannot be swiped out of, and the daily-details view can't be swiped out of either. Those two screens require a "close" button, but they're in different places, making the whole system even more unintuitive.
Love the data; disappointed that the update only seems to muddy the navigation even more.
I've used Dark Sky for 2-3 years. It's so accurate! Seriously, Amazing.
The notifications are top notch. The interactive radar is top notch (though I wish it allowed for me to see further in advance). This thing is invaluable during outdoor activities.
Here's a little anecdote: I was on the golf course with my dad, when I got a buzzing in my pocket. "Rain in 4 minutes". I said, "Dad, we've gotta get off the course". We got off in about three minutes, and a minute later came the downpour.
Looks amazing but the app is not available on the Hong Kong Apple Store yet. I read on the comments that other than US and UK it doesn't work very well, I guess I'll have to wait a bit..
Dark Sky is the app when people find out I download and try almost every app I hear about and they ask, "What's your favorite app?" I tell them this one without even hesitating.
I used dark sky for about two years. It's a good app but since the developers started to offer their prediction service as an api, other apps have started to include their prediction data. I use Weather Line, which (I think) uses the Dark Sky prediction service and whose interface I prefer. Check the Weather is another good one.
http://www.macstories.net/review...
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