Apple-owned Dark Sky has been removed from App Store ahead of schedule

The weather app Dark Sky is no longer on Apple’s App Store, suggesting it was removed ahead of schedule after the iPhone maker acquired it in March 2020.

  • What’s happening? Dark Sky for iOS is no longer available to download.
  • Why care? You’ll need to find yourself another favorite weather app.
  • What to do? Don’t delete the app from your device if you’d like to continue using it before it stops working completely by the end of 2022.

Apple removes Dark Sky from App Store

With the app pulled, its App Store link no longer works.

People can no longer download Dark Sky onto their iPhones but folks who already have it on the device may continue using it. Just don’t manually delete the app or move to another iPhone set up as new because you won’t be able to re-download it. Read: How to set up next-hour precipitation notifications for Apple Weather

The team previously said Dark Sky would stop working after December 31, 2022.

According to the Dark Sky blog, the app’s removal from App Store also means that the underlying service will stop working. At the time of this writing, however, my copy of Dark Sky happily provided various weather data. Our guess is that the underlying Dark Sky service will soon stop working, too.

Developers previously said that the Dark Sky API and the website would continue to be available until March 31, 2023. Developers who rely on the Dark Sky API can switch to Apple’s WeatherKit API. Apple acquired the app in March 2020, removing the Android version from Google’s Play Store less than six months later.

Why people loved Dark Sky

Dark Sky is considered one of the best weather apps on mobile devices. It has popularized hyperlocal weather forecast. Instead of limiting itself to standard weather forecast, Dark Sky will inform you about the local weather conditions in your current location and notify you if a severe storm or rain is headed your way.

Over time, Apple has updated and augmented its own Weather app with some of the most popular features borrowed from the Dark Sky software.

For instance, the Apple Weather app supports hyperlocal weather forecast thanks to Dark Sky. And with iOS 16, you can configure notifications for severe weather alerts near you. And you can now touch any module in the app to receive a richer overview of data like hourly temperature and precipitation over the next 10 days.

And with iPadOS 16.1, your iPad will for the first come with a fully-featured weather app out of the box that takes full advantage of the tablet’s bigger display.