Adam Grossman:
Fifteen years ago, we started work on the Dark Sky weather app.
Over the years it went through numerous iterations — including
more than one major redesign — as we worked our way through the
process of learning what makes a great weather app. Eventually, in
time, it was acquired by Apple, where the forecast and some core
features were incorporated into Apple Weather.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.So let’s try this again…
Acme Weather is a solid 1.0. Its main innovation is a timeline graph of alternative forecasts:
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.
