A eulogy for Dark Sky, a data visualization masterpiece

Srini Kadamati has written “A Eulogy for Dark Sky a Data Visualization Masterpiece” for Nightingale, the Journal of the Data Visualization Society. Dark Sky was the weather app acquired by Apple, discontinued, and folded into the company’s Weather app.
Apple’s Dark Sky Weather on Apple Watch
Srini Kadamati for Nightingale:

On January 1, 2023, Apple sunsetted (pun intended) the Dark Sky mobile app on iOS. Apple purchased the company behind the popular weather application in early 2020, then announced that it would be shutting down the Dark Sky applications (first on Android, then on iOS and web), and finally stated in 2022 that the forecast technology would be integrated into the Apple Weather app with iOS 16.
But Dark Sky was much more than just an API or a set of “forecast technologies.” The design of the Dark Sky mobile application represented a hallmark of information design because the team clearly obsessed over how people would actually use the app on a daily basis.
The design of Dark Sky was so wonderful that I could understand the shape of the weather at a glance, even from a zoomed out view of the app…
The world needs more Dark Sky-like experiences to help us improve our spending habits, help us sleep better, and more. If you’re working on information software, I hope you can be inspired by the body of design and engineering work that Dark Sky pioneered.

MacDailyNews Take: The full article, with many screenshots and highly recommended, is here.
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