Tech firm Apple Inc. has acquired the popular weather app Dark Sky to become the exclusive provider of minute-by-minute weather updates.
Apple has confirmed that it has acquired the Dark Sky weather app. This means that Dark Sky will no longer be available to Android and Wear OS users.
The deal was confirmed by Dark Sky via a blog post but terms of the deal were not disclosed. The mobile app started as a Kickstarter campaign in 2011. It promised predictive forecasts that were accurate down to the minute and based on users' exact locations.
Dark Sky is run by artificial intelligence and uses radar data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The app has demonstrated the ability to predict when it was going to rain within the next hour, allowing users to adjust accordingly.
The company claimed that by 2015, it was serving 8 million forecasts daily. The weather app has been downloaded over a million times as of Tuesday.
However, Apple announced that it will shut down those apps on July 1, indicating that it plans to make Dark Sky exclusive to iOS users.
Not only will Android users lose access to Dark Sky, third-party app developers will also lose access as the company will discontinue its application programming interface late next year.
This means that third-party app developers using the feature to access and use Dark Sky's weather data in their own apps will be affected. Dark Sky announced that it has already stopped taking new signups from developers looking to access to its data.
This move would affect platforms such as the Amazon Echo, where unaffiliated apps like Big Sky have tapped into Dark Sky's weather data to mimic the functionality the company provides on iOS and Android.
The decision of Apple to implement restrictions on Dark Sky has raised issues on the company's approach to competition. In the past, app developers criticized the firm for its tight control over developers while antitrust officials have questioned the company on its App Store policies.
Apple's strategy of limiting Dark Sky's API comes amidst looming criticisms directed to tech platforms. In 2018, Firefox web browser developer Mozilla pointed out to the Federal Trade Commission that restricting APIs "could be anti-competitive in intent and effect."
According to Sally Hubbard, an antitrust expert and tech critic at the Open Markets Institute, the Dark Sky acquisition is likely to be small enough to avoid federal reporting requirements by Apple.
However, she argued that any merger or acquisition by a major tech platform should be reviewed by regulators.
Hubbard explained: "Given that these tech guys already have so much market power, I think we really need to be vigilant of them cutting off the access for others to be innovators in the marketplace,"
"Interoperability should be a standard merger condition whenever any of the main tech platforms acquire companies, if the merger is going to be permitted," she added.
Meanwhile, Charlotte Slaiman, an antitrust expert at the consumer advocacy group Public Knowledge, pointed out that if enough competing weather apps can replicate Dark Sky's most valuable functions, the move might not be deemed anti-competitive.
