The team behind Dark Sky is back with a new weather app for iPhone called “Acme Weather.” One of the primary goals of Acme Weather, according to the team, is to address “forecast uncertainty.”
Rather than simply giving you a “single best guess” like other weather apps, Acme Weather acknowledges that it the forecast it’s showing might be wrong … and offers up some alternatives.
Acme Weather comes from the team behind Dark Sky
As a refresher, Dark Sky was a very popular third-party weather app for iPhone and Android with an emphasis on hyper-local, real-time forecasts. The app was acquired by Apple in March 2020 and ultimately shut down in January 2023. Apple has incorporated some of Dark Sky’s features into the stock Apple Weather app. It also launched a WeatherKit API for developers.
So, why did the Dark Sky team leave Apple? In a blog post, co-creator Adam Grossman explained:
We enjoyed our time at Apple. So why did we leave to start another weather company?
It’s 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.
The headlining feature of Acme Weather is something called Alternative Forecasts. This is inspired by the idea that no weather forecast will ever be 100% accurate. “The weather is moody, fickle, and chaotic,” Grossman explains. “Forecasts are often wrong.”
Instead of showing you just one possible forecast, Acme Weather acknowledges that uncertainty and “embraces the idea that our forecast will sometimes be wrong.”
Acme Weather still says that its primary forecast model will “be a reliable source of information.” In fact, they say it’s better than what they used at Dark Sky. The forecasts are produced based on multiple sources, including “numerical weather prediction models, satellite data, ground station observations, and radar data.”
That forecast, however, is supplemented with the aforementioned alternate possibilities that “that capture a range of alternate possible outcomes.”
Grossman explains:
First, the spread of the lines offers a sort of intuition as to how reliable the forecast is. Take the two forecasts below. In the first, the alternate predictions are tightly focused and the forecast can be considered robust and reliable. In the second, there is a significant spread, which is an indication that something is up and the forecast may be subject to change. It’s a call to action to check other conditions or maps, or come back to the app more frequently.
Second, it simply shows what else might plausibly happen. In what time range might the storm arrive? Will the snow hit early, or might it be delayed and turn mostly to rain? When the weather is changing rapidly, predictions can become less reliable. We’ll show you different possible futures, so you can be better informed.
Acme Weather also offers a community reporting feature, which allows users to submit reports of the current conditions near them. There are also dedicated maps in Acme Weather for things like radar and lightning, rain, snow totals, temperature, cloud cover, and more.
Finally, the app features robust support for notifications. “Our notifications include everything from down-to-the-minute rain warnings, to government severe weather alerts, nearby lightning, community reports, and even whether or not a rainbow might be visible outside your house,” Grossman explains.
9to5Mac’s Take
I’m a sucker for weather apps and weather data, and Acme Weather is joining my arsenal. What strikes me most about the app is how well it takes large amounts of information and distills that into an interface that is actually readable.
Some apps that simply show you one forecast feel more overwhelming than Acme Weather, which is showing you multiple possible forecasts at the same time.
You can download Acme Weather on the App Store. The app is $25 per year with a two-week free trial. It’s currently available for iPhone, but the team says an Android version is coming soon.
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