The Dark Sky Android app stopped working on Aug. 1, 2020. Users who opened it saw a message that the “app has shut down.”
Apple bought the weather app in March. Dark Sky announced the deal in a blog post, and co-founder Adam Grossman wrote that “there is no better place to accomplish these goals than at Apple.” The team, he said, would get to “reach far more people, with far more impact, than we ever could alone.”
The price for Android and Wear OS owners was the end of their apps. Downloads were switched off the day of the announcement. Existing users were told they could keep using the apps until July 1, and anyone with an active subscription on that date would get a refund. Developers later pushed the cutoff back by a month.
The iPhone version was left alone. At the time of the announcement it still sold on the App Store for $3.99, with no changes planned “at this time.” Dark Sky’s website also took on new branding, “Dark Sky by Apple.”
Developers get more time
Other apps on iOS and Android had long pulled weather data from Dark Sky’s API. That feed kept running “through the end of 2021,” Grossman said, but the company stopped taking new sign-ups. Developers had until the end of 2021 to find another data source.
The website was a separate matter. Forecasts, maps and embeds there were to go dark on July 1, then Aug. 1. When that date came, the developers said forecasts and maps would stay up for the time being, though embeds were disabled. No new date for the web shutdown had been set, so Android users still had a browser option for a while.
Sources
- Apple acquires popular weather app Dark Sky and will shut down the Android version
- Apple-Acquired Dark Sky Officially Shuts Down Android App
- In wake of Apple acquisition, Dark Sky ends Android support
Sources
- Apple acquires popular weather app Dark Sky and will shut down the…
- Apple-Acquired Dark Sky Officially Shuts Down Android App
