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COMMENT PAGE FOR:
HTML Acme Weather
elAhmo wrote 3 hours 43 min ago:
No one should be using apps made by these guys after their sellout to
Apple. Leaving Apple now to start another weather app is quite
disingenuous.
npodbielski wrote 8 hours 43 min ago:
Not available on Android. They are looking for Android Dev so I guess
it is coming.
cawksuwcka wrote 9 hours 40 min ago:
i live weather people. âhey, howâs the weather?.â click.
LeoPanthera wrote 12 hours 29 min ago:
I wish weather apps would tell you what models they're using, and the
source of their data.
That's why I subscribe to Windy, you can see what model they're using,
and pick between a variety of them.
renewiltord wrote 15 hours 31 min ago:
$25/yr for accurate weather predictions is valuable but I donât want
app. I want api usage. Weather use for me is through Claw-type
background agent that notifies me prior to events.
Woodrow503 wrote 15 hours 55 min ago:
Amazing. Just downloaded and will happily pay the $25 if this operates
anywhere close to what dark sky was before the buyout. Weâve got some
interesting weather on the horizon so this should be a good test.
Now they just need to offer an Apple Watch complication like this: [1]
Still bothers me that apple weather doesnât offer this.
HTML [1]: https://imgur.com/oTG7MH6
aucisson_masque wrote 17 hours 7 min ago:
> $25/year subscription
I don't get it, is there even a market ? People get free and quite
accurate weather information from Google and others. I don't think that
a few radar view and probability prediction are worth that amount of
money.
But then, how much was dark sky ? And did it succeed ? Getting bought
by apple is a kind of success but I mean success as in profitability.
i7l wrote 3 hours 3 min ago:
The free (and paid) apps for weather are seriously terrible in LatAm.
You can really see the focus and high data quality are all in the
northern hemisphere. All the apps available rely on a handful on
models: GFS, IFS, ICON, ...
Analemma_ wrote 13 hours 44 min ago:
The underlying data sources are not free, weather data providers
charge per API request. Stock weather apps built into the OS eat this
cost for you, but third-party apps can't do that, they either have to
show ads (ugh) or have a subscription.
Of the $2.08/month this works out to, I don't know how much the devs
have left for themselves after the weather API and Apple's 30% cut,
but I can't imagine it's much. I don't think you're getting ripped
off here.
deepfriedbits wrote 13 hours 45 min ago:
I'm not sure if the price rose later, but I remember getting Dark Sky
for a $3.99 one-time payment. Much more palatable than $25/year imo.
sigmar wrote 12 hours 11 min ago:
think it was pay once on iOS and the android dark sky app that came
out later was $3/year. So like 733% increase.
nephihaha wrote 16 hours 36 min ago:
"Quite accurate"
I've been hearing snow predictions for two months now. We have had
one or two light dustings which didn't lie. I also find most
predictions are mostly useless beyond three days.
counters wrote 16 hours 57 min ago:
There's probably an initial "nostalgia for DarkSky" market. But
beyond that? Nope.
bsimpson wrote 17 hours 8 min ago:
Anyone trying it out in NYC? Curious to know what it expects of
tomorrow's potential blizzard.
Add me to the list of people not excited to pay a subscription to get
Dark Sky back, but also bummed I can't yet try it on Android.
counters wrote 16 hours 28 min ago:
It would just be regurgitating information from numerical forecast
models.
If you're in the Northeast and have questions about the significant
winter storm that is impending, please check out the National Weather
Service's forecast and decision support materials for your community
on www.weather.gov.
danpalmer wrote 17 hours 14 min ago:
Did DarkSky ever make it out of the US? I know it was US only for a
long time, as it seems this is.
Even recently Apple Weather was hilariously bad in Australia. I was
always asking my partner for the weather because her Pixel weather app
was reasonably reliable and Apple Weather was always wrong.
Weather forecasts are such a localised issue. I've never seen an app
that does well globally.
krelas wrote 15 hours 51 min ago:
Just get the BOM app, nothing else comes close for accurate weather
here.
MuEta wrote 18 hours 55 min ago:
This app looks great! Only thing I can't find is snow / rain
accumulation, which is extremely important when living in the
mountains.
Exuma wrote 19 hours 47 min ago:
Awesome - do you offer a small widget for the lock screen?
readsdiggdaily wrote 20 hours 20 min ago:
Brzzy Weather is here and available all over the world. Enter "Monkey"
in the secret code section and get lifetime access.
HTML [1]: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/brzzy-weather-radar-alerts/id667...
naet wrote 20 hours 25 min ago:
The app looks beautiful and the multi forecast model makes a lot of
sense.
I don't think I am ready to pay an annual subscription for it. Feels
like a big ask for the weather when there are so many other free
sources to get a forecast. But I appreciate that the app was made with
real intention and wish I you success with it.
j45 wrote 20 hours 33 min ago:
it would be great to look up weather on their website too not just the
app like other tools.
joecool1029 wrote 20 hours 35 min ago:
Does anyone know if the subscription can be shared with family?
Aboutplants wrote 16 hours 13 min ago:
Yes please devs, make this subscription shareable with family
JasonHarrison wrote 17 hours 22 min ago:
I am on the free trial and it did not extend to my family. Unsure
whether this will change when the trial converts to a paid
subscription.
joe_hills wrote 19 hours 48 min ago:
I was looking at the in-app purchases list and it doesn't explicitly
have a family-sharing plan like Weather Line does.
This looks great and I'd definitely consider switching my family
Weather Line plan over to an Acme Weather family plan if it becomes
possible.
rvz wrote 21 hours 16 min ago:
> Itâs simple: when looking at the landscape of the countless weather
apps out there, many of them lovely, we found ourselves feeling
unsatisfied. The more we spoke to friends and family, the more we heard
that many of them did too. And, of course, we missed those days as a
small scrappy shop.
> So letâs try this againâ¦
At this point, I think that this is just going to get bought out by
OpenAI.
Won't be totally surprised to see that outcome.
be_erik wrote 1 day ago:
Ha, this looks like someone took mine and got a real designer to polish
it.
HTML [1]: https://wthr.cloud
gcanyon wrote 1 day ago:
Time for everyone who has posted lamenting how Dark Sky was better
(that's me!) to put our money where our mouth is.
focusedone wrote 1 day ago:
Sweet! Looking forward to the android version. I was slightly bitter
when apple yanked the website.
idatum wrote 20 hours 20 min ago:
After losing Dark Sky on Android, I discovered Foreca app. Works well
in my area in the PNW.
One thing I learned is some post processing done by these services
are better in some areas than others.
bichiliad wrote 1 day ago:
I have always had a ton of respect for the Dark Sky devs. I love the
work that goes into designing interfaces that make sense of complex
datasets intuitively, and I feel like Dark Sky was a textbook example.
Iâm genuinely really excited to try this out.
SoftTalker wrote 12 hours 7 min ago:
I agree, Dark Sky was really nicely done. That said, when I want to
know the weather I just look out the window, so it's unlikely to be
something I would buy.
skadamat wrote 23 hours 44 min ago:
Couldn't agree more! This is why I wrote the Eulogy for Dark Sky:
HTML [1]: https://nightingaledvs.com/dark-sky-weather-data-viz/
bichiliad wrote 12 hours 53 min ago:
I read this a bit ago and really enjoying it! It felt like it did
justice to the effort that people wouldn't appreciate otherwise.
ajdude wrote 1 day ago:
> Fifteen years ago, we started work on the Dark Sky weather app.
I will never forgive them for selling out to Apple.
Dark sky was the greatest weather app I've ever used, it had features
such as considering the pressure of the atmosphere when predicting rain
using crowd sourced phones, and it was the only app I've ever used that
was as accurate as it was during a time when my job relied on quickly
leaving the office and running across town multiple times a day.
it was sad watching the API get killed off but even worse was that a
lot of the features that dark sky had never really made it into Apple
weather, and the rain predictions at Apple Weather had were never as
accurate as dark sky. There were several times where it was actively
raining and Apple weather never even knew. Dark sky always knew.
Nope nope nope fool me once shame on you fool me twice shame on me, I'm
not touching this with 39 1/2 foot pole.
estearum wrote 1 day ago:
Assume they do sell out again in a year or 5.
Why exactly should you willingly choose to have worse weather
predictions between here and there?
A weather app isn't something with lock-in or dependencies where
using a maybe-not-permanent-solution is going to hamstring you if it
disappears.
IgorPartola wrote 1 day ago:
Exactly my sentiment. Will they sell out to Google or Microsoft this
time?
allddd wrote 1 day ago:
If a weather app is going to be truly useful, it usually needs a lot of
permissions, like access to your location all the time, notifications,
etc., and I donât feel comfortable giving a proprietary app that kind
of access, especially when there are great FOSS alternatives.
kristopolous wrote 1 day ago:
Check out zoom.earth, found it recently. They have an app too. [1]
Apparently it's by [2] who looks like an indy developer out of london
(according to this: [2] legal/privacy/)
Also check [4] by
HTML [1]: https://zoom.earth/
HTML [2]: https://neave.com/
HTML [3]: https://neave.com/legal/privacy/
HTML [4]: https://earth.nullschool.net/
HTML [5]: https://github.com/cambecc
kaizenb wrote 1 day ago:
Good one thanks.
user3939382 wrote 1 day ago:
Neave has been around forever theyâre great
rotbart wrote 1 day ago:
I can't download it, as it appears to be US only. Based on the
screenshots, without 'feels like' support throughout the forecast (not
just for current conditions) it wouldn't be useful where I live.
khalic wrote 1 day ago:
Never understood using that metric, doesnât temp and wind give you
enough info? Genuine question
lotsofpulp wrote 20 hours 47 min ago:
Dew point and relative humidity, along with temperature and wind,
are crucial measures to predicting how you will feel. [1] [2] In
the US, the 100th meridian is a popular demarcation for the half of
the country that experiences high humidity versus the other half
that experiences low humidity. It is why 100F in Phoenix, Arizona
is much more tolerable than 100F in Atlanta, Georgia.
HTML [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dew_point
HTML [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humidity#Relative_humidity
HTML [3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/100th_meridian_west
pavon wrote 17 hours 43 min ago:
Do any feel-like estimates take cloud cover into consideration?
It doesn't seem like it, but in a high altitude desert like NM,
it is a huge factor. Furthermore, the magnitude of the effect
varies depending on the day of year and time of day (how much
atmosphere the sun passes through), so you can't just mentally
add 10 degrees or something. And it isn't just based on the
immediate conditions - if it has been cloudy all morning it will
feel cooler even after the sun comes out then it will if the
ground has been baking in the sun all morning. Some of that is
accounted for by the air temperature (conductive heating of the
air by the ground), but there is also a radiative heating effect
as well. I would love an app that tried to incorporate those
factors into it's "feels-like" estimate.
counters wrote 16 hours 24 min ago:
> Do any feel-like estimates take cloud cover into
consideration?
No, usually not, because they're usually just simple toys
combining a heat index and wind chill scale.
There _is_ an official metric used for estimating heat stress
that accounts for cloud cover - the Wet-bulb Globe Temperature
(e.g. [1] ). This is what is used, for instance, in literature
analyzing the impact that future climate change might have on
heat stress and mortality risk during heat waves. It's also
used by some professional sports programs to monitor risk for
crowds and athletes, as well as commonly used by OSHA and other
regulatory agencies looking at worker exposure to heat hazards.
HTML [1]: https://www.weather.gov/tsa/wbgt
enraged_camel wrote 1 day ago:
The "feels like" metric is more closely tied to human stress and
safety than raw temperature.
In cold weather (wind chill), wind strips away the thin warm layer
of air next to your skin, so you lose heat faster. Hence, "feels
colder".
In hot weather (heat index), humidity slows sweat evaporation, so
your body can't cool itself as effectively. Hence, "feels hotter".
So it's a lot more useful for decision-making (like what to wear,
weather it is safe to run/hike, how much water you need, etc.) than
the plain temperature.
Wowfunhappy wrote 20 hours 41 min ago:
Just to add further color: Iâm a teacher, and at my school, we
use the âfeels likeâ temperature to decide whether to send
kids outside for recess. Without that metric, weâd need to
either ignore the wind chill, create our own formula, or leave it
up to the judgement of the individual teacher running recess that
day. Much better to have a number.
khalic wrote 17 hours 21 min ago:
That makes sense, enough to do keeping them alive without the
field heuristics
khalic wrote 22 hours 44 min ago:
thx for the perspective!
greatgib wrote 1 day ago:
We don't care about a Weather app. Very easy to do and there are
millions of it. What is missing is good freely accessible data /api for
weather info.
Most free one are disappearing and frustratingly in most countries, the
weather agency you pay with your tax will not provide it for you.
wlonkly wrote 17 hours 26 min ago:
I care! I have to cross-reference multiple apps to get a good
detailed forecast, a "minutecast" of precipitation, and Canadian
humidex and windchill numbers. I haven't tried this one yet because
I'm a little confused why it didn't offer me a free trial, but if it
gives me all of that then I am sold.
Sgt_Apone wrote 16 hours 24 min ago:
I think itâs a bug for Canadian users as it doesnât offer me a
trial either. Or they just donât do trials here.
skadamat wrote 23 hours 43 min ago:
Speak for yourself :) Weather data is already freely available.
I want something that integrates into my life very minimally and just
gives me the information I need when I need it. Most weather apps
fail at this.
estearum wrote 1 day ago:
I care about a weather app and since Dark Sky disappeared there has
been nothing even remotely close to it in usefulness, FOSS or
otherwise.
allddd wrote 1 day ago:
Weather agencies funded by taxes should make their data available to
everyone, since itâs the public that finances them. Luckily,
thatâs already the case where I live, but when I travel I have to
rely on global sources like Open-Meteo, which are usually less
accurate than local ones. Another open (and global) alternative would
be great.
mittermayr wrote 1 day ago:
Smells heavily like the Wunderlist approach, just re-do and re-sell the
same thing over and over.
imiric wrote 1 day ago:
How are weather apps still relevant, let alone profitable enough to
build a company around? This problem has been solved years ago. All the
app needs to do is hook up to one or more data providers, and show some
stats and pretty graphs. It's essentially a read-only frontend to an
API. There are plenty of options to choose from on every platform,
including not using an app at all.
The features this ad promotes all seem like solutions to nonexistent
problems. "Alternate possible futures" don't give me any more
confidence in the forecastâit just shows that it's not reliable,
which everyone should know already. "Community reports" just add
another layer of uncertainty. How can I trust that someone's report is
valid or up-to-date, or that it applies to my area? Maps are nice and
visually interesting, but this is not exactly novel. Notifications? No
thanks. A weather app "should be fun"? Huge no thanks. Privacy and
trust? Why do you collect any data?? Unbelievable.
kmbfjr wrote 1 day ago:
You are not wrong, except at scale it gets complicated quickly. For
starters, to support large user numbers, youâre going to have to
process your own grib2 data for radar and turn them into tiles at
zoom levels.
It takes about 24 cores with a GPU to do CONUS, Canada, Alaska,
Pacific and Caribbean data. This should be 2x for redundancy. Even
being cheap with main processing in my basement (gen power, backup
internet) the cloud costs to serve it are $200 month plus data
transfer. The standby grib machine spins up should it not see the
cheap primary or the NOAAPort receiver is offline.
There is no money to be made without whoring out your userâs
privacy. People just wonât pay for a privacy focused weather app.
I keep this going as a hobby.
imiric wrote 22 hours 32 min ago:
Fair enough. Things are always more complicated at scale.
But then again, we don't know whether this company is maintaining
this infra themselves, or if they're paying for API access.
Besides, if anything, running their own servers is often the more
cost-effective option, so the details you mention might not matter
in practice.
My incredulity has more to do with the profitability of this type
of software, considering that the free options are good enough for
the average person, and that the features promoted in the article
are hardly innovative.
> There is no money to be made without whoring out your userâs
privacy.
Well, I do object to that. It's certainly possible to sustain a
profitable business without selling out your users' data. It may
not be as profitable as the advertising model, which is often too
enticing for companies to ignore. This company explicitly says that
their income comes directly from customers, so apparently I'm
underestimating the amount of people who find these features
valuable enough to pay for them.
cryptoz wrote 1 day ago:
> Why do you collect any data??
There are like, billions of internet-connected barometers in the
world that are not used in weather models. I donât know if Acme has
any of that in mind, but there is plenty of good reason for a weather
app to collect data from phones. I know @counters may disagree with
me, but I believe there are opportunities to improve short term
forecast accuracy using data collected from phones.
Also, pretty much every day, all the apps and all the sites will tell
me the incorrect current conditions at my location, much less the
forecast. Itâs 2026 damnit. Why doesnât my phone know what the
weather is outside right now?
I havenât got the app yet, but I plan on it (gotta upgrade iOS
first I think). Acme seems to have a lot of ideas I agree with, so,
definitely following this.
One more thing. Weather apps have not been âsolvedâ. Not even
close. They all suck, thereâs billions in untapped opportunity, and
a stale existing market of bad solutions. People die all the time
from severe weather. There is so much more work to be done in
forecast accuracy and communication.
imiric wrote 1 day ago:
> I believe there are opportunities to improve short term forecast
accuracy using data collected from phones.
Alright, fair point. That could be a reasonable use case.
But judging by their advertised "Community reports" feature, Acme
doesn't seem to be doing this. And even if they did, this feature
should be opt-in, and their privacy policy should only apply for
those users.
> Also, pretty much every day, all the apps and all the sites will
tell me the incorrect current conditions at my location, much less
the forecast. Itâs 2026 damnit. Why doesnât my phone know what
the weather is outside right now?
Have you tried looking out the window? What do you need hyper-local
and minute-accurate forecasts for? If you need to know accurate
current conditions get a thermometer and barometer. If you want it
on your smartphone, then the app could show you live readings from
your device, without sending the data anywhere.
Weather forecasts have always been an inexact science, and likely
always will be. Our models have gotten better over time, and at
this point I think that they're good enough. I only need to know
the general temperature and likelihood of certain weather events a
few days in advance, at most. If there's a chance of rain, I carry
an umbrella just in case. If it's going to be cold, I pack a
jacket.
Highly accurate weather prediction doesn't solve any practical
problem for the average person. Hyping it up like it does only
serves as marketing for companies that want to build a profitable
business around it.
counters wrote 16 hours 15 min ago:
> Weather forecasts have always been an inexact science
Weather forecasting is anything but "an inexact science." It's
extremely exact up to the limitations and assumptions you impose
on your model due to resource constraints.
And yes - I assume that this is what you mean by "an inexact
science." But still in 2026 I regularly meet people who think
that weather forecasting is the same as astrology, completely
ignorant of massive amount of physical scientific understanding
that goes into it.
imiric wrote 10 hours 9 min ago:
> Weather forecasting is anything but "an inexact science."
It's extremely exact up to the limitations and assumptions you
impose on your model due to resource constraints.
It's "extremely exact" but our models are not good enough.
So... inexact?
The reality is that we don't have the technology to model the
physical world with extreme accuracy. If we did, we would be
able to predict the future, and not just weather events. The
world's most powerful supercomputers can model atmospheric
conditions pretty well, and they've certainly improved over
time, but there are still a lot of variables unaccounted for.
This is why I think that ~90% accuracy for a few days in
advance[1] is good enough for most people. A smartphone app
won't miraculously make this better, no matter how pretty or
"fun" it is.
[1]
HTML [1]: https://ourworldindata.org/weather-forecasts
imiric wrote 23 hours 37 min ago:
After thinking more about this, I don't think smartphones would
even be good sources of ambient data that could improve
forecasts.
Smartphones are personal computers. They spend most of their time
in pockets and controlled indoor environments. This ambient data
is of no use to anyone, which is why there's still a market for
home weather stations, whose sensors are typically placed
outside.
cryptoz wrote 20 hours 32 min ago:
The barometer data is for sure noisy, and must be cleaned and
quality controlled. But that is possible to do, has been for 10
years now (there are published papers and demo apps that can do
it). For one, rate of change of atmospheric pressure is pretty
much the same inside as out, your main challenge for the raw
value to be correct is user elevation. That can be corrected in
quality control as well.
Plenty of work has been done on this front, and it can be
demonstrated that you can assimilate the smartphone pressures
into weather models and get some good results. It is hard, of
course, and Iâm not sure personally how much better the
forecasts get.
But itâs absolutely possible.
mattlondon wrote 1 day ago:
Interested, but no android app and apparently US only?
Can we update the title?
imarkphillips wrote 1 day ago:
How about reporting on yesterday's weather? Its hard to plan a walk in
the forest today if I dont know how much it rained yesterday.
Leftium wrote 13 hours 22 min ago:
One of the main features of my weather app is yesterday's weather:
HTML [1]: https://weather-sense.leftium.com
bichiliad wrote 1 day ago:
In the app, you can swipe backwards in time and see the reports and
data for yesterday.
mlrtime wrote 1 day ago:
Weather history sounds like a awesome feature. Sort of like a farmers
almanac built into a modern weather app?
tshaddox wrote 18 hours 39 min ago:
Carrot Weatherâs most expensive subscriptions include 30-day
history.
scratchyone wrote 18 hours 43 min ago:
CARROT has this and itâs amazing! You can âtime travelâ back
as far as you want. Absurdly far, even. I can tell you that it was
20 degrees in my town on Jan 1st, 1940.
kristopolous wrote 1 day ago:
mentioned this elsewhere, but [1] handles that ... (I've got nothing
to do with them btw... I just think it's good)
HTML [1]: https://zoom.earth/
NoboruWataya wrote 1 day ago:
I'm having this problem right now, trying to plan some nice long
walks out of the city but it's been raining a lot lately. I'd love
some kind of map of flooding/muddy conditions, but I don't think it
would be feasible without a massive effort (as whether an area is
prone to flooding or turning into a mudbath after rain depends on a
lot of factors).
bonaldi wrote 1 day ago:
This team really have been thinking about weather a lot, and it makes
me very curious about what theyâve created this time.
Itâs that depth of thought and expertise that feels missing from most
of the vibe-coded launches weâve seen recently. I actually wouldnât
mind if Acme had vibe coded parts, but I bet they didnât.
hypercube33 wrote 18 hours 3 min ago:
I'm almost shocked we don't have a large weather model instead of a
language model. Seems right up the alley.
Also I don't get what happened but I think it was AccuWeather or
weather underground in the early 2000s where it was to the minute
accurate and it seems like it's gotten worse since everywhere.
i7l wrote 3 hours 4 min ago:
Google, Microsoft, Huawei, NVIDIA all have AI weather forecast
models: [1] [2] [3] [4] A Swiss startup named Jua does this for
energy markets. Disclosure: I used to work there.
HTML [1]: https://deepmind.google/science/weathernext/
HTML [2]: https://microsoft.github.io/aurora/intro.html
HTML [3]: https://www.huawei.com/en/news/2023/8/pangu-weather-forcas...
HTML [4]: https://blogs.nvidia.com/blog/nvidia-earth-2-open-models/
wombatpm wrote 12 hours 4 min ago:
Weather Underground had a very reasonable feed that you could
subscribe to back in 2000. I use d then for a cluster of farming
websites I built then.
counters wrote 16 hours 55 min ago:
> I'm almost shocked we don't have a large weather model instead of
a language model. Seems right up the alley.
We do have such models. A bunch of them actually:
- Google DeepMind's "WeatherNext2"
- Microsoft's Aurora
- NVIDIA's FourCastNet-3 + Atlas + Climate-in-a-Bottle
- ECMWF's AIFS
...
The list goes on. Plenty of small startups have repeated the recipe
for building these types of models with their own architectural
twist, too.
danpalmer wrote 17 hours 17 min ago:
I think Google's weather models could be called LWMs. They're doing
interesting research in this space.
JumpCrisscross wrote 1 day ago:
> it makes me very curious about what theyâve created this time
The rainbow and sunset alerts are really cool ideas. I'm now
realising that a simple tie-in to astronomical phenomena could prompt
a useful notificationa around it e.g. being worth going stargazing
that night. I skiâlearning that the near-term forecasts just
changed would help me change my schedule the day before versus trying
and failing the morning of.
rcarmo wrote 1 day ago:
I am going to chalk this up as another datapoint in the "Apple cannot
retain talent" chart. I don't know what the heck they are doing, but
everyone they've acquired seems to leave as soon as they can instead of
staying.
mattlondon wrote 1 day ago:
Leave as soon as you can, along with millions and millions in cash
that you got from the sale? Who wouldn't?! Why would you continue
working for "the man" when you have FU-money?
chickensong wrote 1 day ago:
Should probably quit and sell the same thing again with a different
chart because FU money isn't enough.
The price is reasonable I guess, but also, you can just get weather
for free? IDK...
gregoriol wrote 1 day ago:
I'd love to see some stats on this: people leaving to start something
new (be it Apple or any other acquiring company) might be
over-represent because there is not much news about people staying in
their job
Aldipower wrote 1 day ago:
I used to use DarkSky for the "history data" for my platform. Querying
weather for certain points in the past at certain locations. DarkSky
was great for that until they were bought by Apple. Now I am using
VisualCrossing for historical data. Hope Acme plans to do historical
data too. But if it is US only then it is a no-go anyway.
jwr wrote 1 day ago:
Doesn't seem to be available in the EU. Yet another US-only app with
US-only weather, I guess, like countless othersâ¦
"Obsessing" over your icons and user interface won't make your app
useful to people you explicitly do not provide your app to.
stronglikedan wrote 21 hours 50 min ago:
Not available on Android either, so... no big deal. They're just
starting out. Give them a chance to grow.
skadamat wrote 23 hours 45 min ago:
My understanding is that they're just starting out with the app.
Someone posted it to HN prematurely. Dark Sky expanded to support
global weather and I'm sure Acme will as will.
WarmWash wrote 1 day ago:
All Europe has to do is let grind-culture young people become
billionaires and they'll have all the cool (and necessary) software
they could imagine.
The US might suck socially, but the other side of that coin is that
it gets all the cool stuff.
caseyohara wrote 1 day ago:
I doubt people would complain this much if they came across a weather
app that is only supported in the EU or China or India. No one would
say
Yet another China-only app with China-only weather, I guess, like
countless othersâ¦
"Obsessing" over your icons and user interface won't make your app
useful to people you explicitly do not provide your app to.
Build your own EU weather app if you care so much. No one is
obligated to support their software in the part of the world you
happen to live.
sixtyj wrote 1 day ago:
Windy.com - both website and app. It covers the whole world and seems
that they have very large number of models available.
esperent wrote 1 day ago:
Also yr.no app - the Norwegian weather service. Covers the whole
world, uses a decent selection of models. I go between this and
windy.
mlrtime wrote 1 day ago:
Why not look into it instead of complaining about something you have
no right to have in the first place?
Maybe the market is too small, maybe it will come with the next
version, maybe there are EU barriers that prevent implementation?
This constant complaining about something that didn't exist 1 second
ago is tiresome.
bromuro wrote 1 day ago:
Dark Sky weather app never landed in Europe while it was available
in US for years. The complaint is legit.
StopDisinfo910 wrote 1 day ago:
Why would you pay a subscription for a weather app in the EU when
national providers are already so good?
I guess they wanted to focus on the US market at first because they
know there is money to be made there.
bromuro wrote 1 day ago:
EU weather apps usually have an horrible UX. This one seems pretty
cool and Iâd pay for it if it would be available. I now use the
ugly Windy.com app and the weather ios app.
agluszak wrote 1 day ago:
Why is that? I know that some US-based news websites choose the
nuclear option of completely disabling access to EU-based users
instead of complying with EU laws. But weather app? What problem do
they have with supporting EU users?
Terretta wrote 1 day ago:
Has EU weather sources per credits (DWD, ECMWF, EUMETSAT -- roughly
what it's doing is graphing multiple models), but if you are into
weather apps you're likely best off with Carrot that (a) lets you
design your own UI including matching this (more or less), and (b)
lets you choose among weather sources and flip among them with a tap.
If it's about cute UI and key notifications, try Hello Weather. For
microcell notifications on anything, Tomorrow weather. For much
better maps, WeatherMap.
For comparing multiple models, try Windy.app. For coastal barrier
island use, I have 8 graphed at once, most of them EU models.
Very little reason for any weather app beyond Carrot, though Apple
Weather is surprising evolved from the app of 20 years ago, no longer
the 4th app to replace after messaging, maps, and browser).
Carrot is the only weather app with a vicious weather control AI
singing an entire Broadway concept album about your destruction at
you though.
shakiness3383 wrote 13 hours 2 min ago:
I appreciate the uncertainty approach of Acme, but itâs not very
meaningful if the methods are black box (just a generic list of
agency sources isnât informative). Something like meteoblue is
much more robust and transparent. Will have to give Carrot a try,
sounds promising.
ho_schi wrote 1 day ago:
It looks nice. Less nice but very good in Germany is DWD Warn
Weather: [1] Yes. We pay for it with taxes! And again with our money
in the App Store. But the app success is build upon the lawsuit from
WetterOnline which is a private company. [2] The lawsuit backfired
and made the state funded app well known. WetterOnline attacked the
DWD because the state funded app is superior :)
I think in Italy they have some similar app. Would be nice if the EU
helps us to unify the app. And add offline capabilities, bad or no
internet happens. The weather radar is offline of less use but the
forecast still helps.
They release videos for dangerous weather on YouTube. Weâll know
for regular people, in regular cloths, speaking like regular Germans.
Everyone loves it :)
I like it when important services are provided by the state and
private companies. Save foundation! In worst case the state is always
better. In best case they compete and public benefits. In this case
the private company just sucks. But they made a good job in
advertising for DWD ^^
PS: If someone would implement a nice weather for Linux (best Gtk)
based upon DWD public data? DO IT!
HTML [1]: https://apps.apple.com/de/app/dwd-warnwetter/id986420993?l=e...
HTML [2]: https://www.bundesgerichtshof.de/SharedDocs/Pressemitteilung...
lionkor wrote 1 day ago:
I'm in Germany and I really enjoy the Norwegian weather app YR, it's
nice and simple and very clean.
NoboruWataya wrote 1 day ago:
BreezyWeather is a pretty good open source option for Android, if you
are looking. Gives you plenty of options of data providers to use.
HTML [1]: https://github.com/breezy-weather/breezy-weather
pixelesque wrote 1 day ago:
Yeah, odd to show an example screenshot with France and Spain on the
map if it's not available there...
ca6d8815 wrote 1 day ago:
Try your local weather app. Here in Switzerland the MeteoSwiss app is
absolutely wonderful, and has all these main features:
- Uncertainty bands in the forecast (the bands are a better UX than
more lines imo)
- User-supplied reports
- Many many many different maps (snow / cloud / wind / sunshine /
air quality / etc)
- Alerts (not notifications, but real alerts to watch out for
something)
Plus many more other features. I found Yr in Norway also good (and on
the web you also get uncertainty in the 21 day forecast [1] ).
Local weather services shouldn't be overlooked (and they're "free"...
save for taxes!).
HTML [1]: https://www.yr.no/en/21-day-forecast/1-305409/Norway/Troms/T...
jwr wrote 23 hours 24 min ago:
I actually use (and pay a subscription for) Windy, which is local
(EU) and has data from a multitude of providers (some of which
aren't free).
My comment was a critique of a launching approach that I find
annoying, because I would never dare to launch an app ignoring most
of the world.
ratrocket wrote 22 hours 10 min ago:
Is that the blue windy or the red windy? I can never keep them
straight!
sschueller wrote 1 day ago:
In Switzerland all weather data is now also open and accessible via
API. You can also use it for commercial purposes.
HTML [1]: https://www.meteoswiss.admin.ch/services-and-publications/...
fastasucan wrote 1 day ago:
Yes! They are much better. Yr has a great API as well.
k4rli wrote 1 day ago:
yr.no tends to be most accurate for Scandi+Baltics somehow pretty
often.
Ventusky has the best app experience in Android with many different
layers like wind, precipitation, air quality and many more. Can
only recommend this as well.
mr_mitm wrote 1 day ago:
WarnWetter for Germany. Costs a symbolic 1 Euro for dumb reasons,
but I think it's easily worth it.
Lord_Zero wrote 1 day ago:
Is there really that much money in making a weather app where you can
quit your job at apple and do that?
gregoriol wrote 1 day ago:
Funniest thing is how they leave the company they sold their weather
app to... to start another weather app.
gcanyon wrote 1 day ago:
The team/person responsible for Woot sold it to Amazon, and then
launched Meh the day their non-compete ended, along with a
manifesto explaining how badly they thought Amazon had handled
Woot.
malfist wrote 19 hours 41 min ago:
Got a link to the manifesto? My kagi-fu isn't finding it
pixelatedindex wrote 15 hours 42 min ago:
Speaking of subscriptions, how is the Kagi one working out for
you? Is it worth the switch?
malfist wrote 14 hours 5 min ago:
Depends, I love it and am happy to pay for it out of privacy
concerns and supporting a non-monopolist. It's got some neat
features that I use all the time that google doesn't have. Is
it's search results better than google? Maybe. Maybe not. I
do know when I can't find something on kagi, google doesn't
either.
gcanyon wrote 18 hours 36 min ago:
I have no clue where I read it, that was back when meh.com
launched eleven-ish years ago. I didn't find it in a hot minute
of searching either. I did find these, some of which talk about
the circumstances obliquely: [1] [2] [3]
HTML [1]: https://www.ecommercefuel.com/woot/
HTML [2]: https://techcrunch.com/2014/06/27/woot-reborn-as-meh/
HTML [3]: https://www.dmagazine.com/publications/d-magazine/2014...
HTML [4]: https://meh.com/forum/topics/year-one-meh-stats--medio...
cryptoz wrote 1 day ago:
They sold their last weather app to Apple for like, tens of millions
or something. These arenât some random Apple employees.
Also, it seems a common misunderstanding about some weather apps:
yes, most of them just package free data and steal your privacy, but
some are really much more than a âweather appâ. Some are attempts
at building next-generation weather forecast models, which if
successful are of course worth billions.
Iâve spent a lot of time building innovative weather apps, most of
my career actually. And itâs always shocking to me when people say
Iâm wasting time or wasting my life or look at me like, âreally?
Youâre dedicating your life to weather apps?!â
No dawg, Iâm trying to improve short term forecasts to save life
and property from severe events at scale!
Iâm not sure what the Acme end goal is, but surely this isnât
just a âweather appâ.
Galanwe wrote 1 day ago:
> Iâm trying [...] to save life and property from severe events
at scale
Tell me you work in Silicon Valley without telling me you work in
silicon Valley.
Sorry but I couldn't resist. There is something in US startup
mentality where you can't just "create an app and make a living",
you have to be on a grand mission to save the world. That may be
normal out there, but for the rest of the world it just seems...
Get back to earth man :-)
3rodents wrote 1 day ago:
Sure, most of us are doing nothing to help people and are using
grandiose language to describe reticulating splines. I donât
think that applies to good weather apps though, a lot of people
do die because they are unaware of weather events. I would be
very unsurprised to learn that any major weather app has directly
saved lives. The U.S is a very⦠weatherful place.
altmanaltman wrote 1 day ago:
People do die due to weather events. But attributing their
death to bad weather apps is pretty wild.
3rodents wrote 1 day ago:
I didnât say that.
dan00 wrote 1 day ago:
Itâs exactly the kind of words that venture capital wants to
here.
JensenTorp wrote 1 day ago:
Subscription app in 2026, no thanks.
j45 wrote 20 hours 32 min ago:
The internet and software always costs someone.
ksynwa wrote 1 day ago:
I only have one Apple devices (an iPad) but from what I seen the
subscription is popular on it. I wanted to use Infuse, a video
player, for my Jellyfin server but the lifetime price was $100 or a
$2/month subscription. Also was interested in Panels, a comic book
reader, for my Komga server. Panels was more reasonably priced ($20
for all updates to the current major version) but it also a
subscription tier at $1.5/month.
oheyadam wrote 1 day ago:
How do you expect them to pay for their costs and service fees? One
time payments of $1-$10 don't cut it. People aren't paying massive
one time fees for mobile apps
JumpCrisscross wrote 1 day ago:
Your phone comes with a free weather app. There are thousands more
free apps for folks who donât mind ads.
Weather requires ongoing costs. Itâs always going to need to be
maintained because meteorological models are evolving. Anything
beyond a viewport will need to track and metabolize those changes.
imiric wrote 1 day ago:
> Weather requires ongoing costs.
I strongly doubt that this company runs their own weather stations
or meteorological models. Their only recurring cost is API access
to the companies that provide weather data, a negligible amount of
IT infrastructure, and their employees. Considering that there are
many free weather APIs, and that a polished frontend can be built
by a single person, what exactly are the overheads?
To be fair, I'm not criticizing the subscription model. I think it
makes sense for software that needs to be continually maintained.
But a weather app shouldn't have large maintenance costs that
couldn't be covered by a one-time payment. A big reason why
companies love the Apple ecosystem is because subscriptions have
been normalized, and users are used to paying them regardless if
the model actually makes sense for the type of software.
plantain wrote 1 day ago:
Good luck getting ECMWF ensemble data for free.
JumpCrisscross wrote 1 day ago:
> strongly doubt that this company runs their own weather
stations or meteorological models. Their only recurring cost is
API access to the companies that provide weather data
No. But I'd suspect a tabula rasa approach to
weatherâparticularly given it hasn't been rolled out globally
in one goâincorporates satellite data, local measurements, et
cetera.
Again, that may not take constant subscriprtion. But it does take
constant expert monitoring and awareness.
> Considering that there are many free weather APIs
If you're a glorified viewport into these APIs' data, you may be
able to stick with their most-static data and fire and forget. In
reality, what those outputs mean change as the models and
techniques evolve. There are new APIs with new data constantly
coming out, and they're often adding connectors.
> a weather app shouldn't have large maintenance costs that
couldn't be covered by a one-time payment
The only way I see this working is if the user is explicitly
aware the app can break at any time if one of the APIs change
anything, which they often do, and that this may not cause any
obvious failures, just a decay in the app's accuracy or
usefulness.
counters wrote 16 hours 19 min ago:
> No. But I'd suspect a tabula rasa approach to
weatherâparticularly given it hasn't been rolled out globally
in one goâincorporates satellite data, local measurements, et
cetera.
There most likely won't ever be such an effort - even in
companies that are targeting verticalization of the "weather
supply chain" (proprietary observations + models + decision
support tools) - if only because it would be utterly foolish
to exclude the vast amounts of data collected by government
agencies and the wide variety of players in the weather
enterprise. At best, verticalized weather companies can produce
niche value over baseline from the single modality of
proprietary data they collect.
The infrastructure for observing and forecasting the weather is
incredibly sophisticated, and has been evolving for about 150
years at this point. The quality of contemporary numerical
weather prediction likely doesn't leave much headroom towards
the threshold of fundamental physical limitations on
predictability. This is why there are groans and eye rolls from
the weather community each time a new player steps forward with
yet-another-AI-model-trained-on-ERA5-reanalysis and boasts some
comically small improvement in average forecast skill.
With all that being said, there's likely an exciting frontier
opening up as the AI models push towards encompassing data
assimilation. But the applications that start to become
extremely interesting there won't have any noticeable impact on
average forecast quality for your typical weather app.
JumpCrisscross wrote 11 hours 40 min ago:
> it would be utterly foolish to exclude the vast amounts of
data collected by government agencies
Never suggested this. You use the government data. And you
supplement with specialist sources. If youâre near any
avalanche areas, for example, your snow forecasts typically
have an additional layer of resolution available if you know
where to look.
qkc3p3Jbf4 wrote 1 day ago:
Looks lovely. I was keen to try this but US and Canada only
unfortunately.
Also: subscription fatigue is real. Of course I understand that
fetching weather data isnât free etc. (even though Iâm intrigued by
their homegrown forecast model) but Iâve already got 10+
subscriptions on iOS and Iâm not sure if Iâve got the stomach for
another. Appleâs weather app is finally good though since the Dark
Sky acquisition.
RebeccaTheDev wrote 20 hours 21 min ago:
> Also: subscription fatigue is real.
This. I just went and cancelled a bunch of vampire subscriptions that
had accrued in my life (both in and out of the Apple ecosystem) and
ended up saving somewhere in the range of $60 a month.
I get that people have bills to pay and building and maintaining
software costs money, but when everyone wants money from me for every
little thing, eventually I have to decide who gets what cut from an
increasingly limited sized pie.
Apps like this that, while beautiful, replicate functionality that is
"good enough" that I can get for free are the first thing to be cut.
scoot wrote 2 hours 23 min ago:
Going even further off topic, one of the things I love with Apple
is having all your subscriptions in one place, and being able to
cancel them easily.
The few zombie subscriptions I've had have all existed outside of
the App store, one that I didn't even sign up for (looking at you
Masterclass). I bought a one year gift subscription for someone
else, and because it came with a "free" subscription for me (that I
didn't use), I git hit with annual renewals until I noticed it on
my credit card statement and cancelled.
Yes, I should check those more frequently, but who has time for
that?
It rankles that you can can cancel a free trial before it's over
with every app exept Apple's. I like the feature, but the double
standard grates.
basicoperation wrote 1 day ago:
The site doesnât make it clear, but itâs not available worldwide.
The App Store doesnât tell you where exactly it is available, but
itâs not in the UK.
This surprised me seeing as one of the example images shows Europe,
including the south coast of Britain.
pzmarzly wrote 14 hours 35 min ago:
From website's FAQ:
Acme is currently available in the United States (including Hawaii,
Alaska, and Puerto Rico) and Canada.
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