With the recent news of Giphy being purchased by Facebook for ~$400 Million (I mean really, 400?), I thought I'd list a couple of the things that I've lost to buyouts.
Sunrise Calendar (Microsoft)
Back in 2015, Microsoft purchased(swallowed?) Sunrise Calendar. This was the most incredible calendar app and widget I had ever used, bringing all of my calendars together seamlessly and with a widget you could customise to look great with any background.
Not only did they do this, but they basically killed the app by having the developers work on their Outlook app and finally, on the 31st August 2016, it was gone. I have never found anything quite like it.
Dark Sky Weather (Apple)
In March, Apple flipped the world upside down and then took a gigantic shit on pretty much everyone that used Dark Sky, apart from their own iOS based users that is.
Dark Sky was THE most accurate weather app I have ever used. We're talking down to a couple of minutes accuracy. For someone who does a lot of running and cycling, knowing what the weather is going to be doing is kind of important.
It had temperature, wind speed/direction, precipitation details, pretty much everything you needed to plan out the day. While there was a free option, I did opt to pay for the premium version as I believe in supporting apps that make a real difference to me.
But no, Apple couldn't allow such things to continue. They gobbled them up and then, through the Dark Sky blog, promptly informed anyone that wasn't on iOS to go suck their shiny metal fruit. But it wasn't just Android users they decided to wage war against, oh no. They also decided it would be a fantastic idea to start shuttering their API too. They ceased all new sign-ups and will be pulling the plug on it in 2021.
Are there any apps that you've lost to the corporations? Join in the discusion over on Fosstodon!