Daily Archives: January 1, 2023

2023 – RIP DarkSky

Dark Sky app icon

RIP Dark Sky, I knew you well.
Well, until Apple bought it in 2020.
Then it was nothing but sadness. About 4 months ago, after an iOS update, I noticed a 1/2023 warning on the app on my phone. It was a subtle reminder that I should be using Apple’s Weather app instead.

Weather has improved with iOS 15 and now iOS 16. You can have lock screen widgets showing precipitation and temp. You could with Dark Sky but it was hit or miss depending on your phone and iOS level.

weather app with sun right, behind a cloud

The new Weather app has some nice features, as the lock screen will change with the weather… moody grey, or morning clouds or dusk. Even 10pm at night shows a cloud with dark sky. If you open Weather and touch the hourly forecast, you will see a visual chart of the temp. Touch the tiny thermometer and you now have choices such as wind and precipitation with measurements every 6hours. Close that (hit the X ) and you return to main screen. There, if you scroll down past the clutter of a map (See, this is where Dark Sky shined… the local map gave radar and not a clutter of state names, cities and towns).
And below that map, are a section of the same chart choices, but in sections that you can access as well as via the hourly section.

I can’t blame the creators of Dark Sky for “selling out”. I mean, afterall, Apple was their market and they were a dev for them. I just hope they run into a weather situation that the new Weather app, well, missed. Because money can’t buy happiness. But it can buy a roof that doesn’t leak or blow away.