Do you use a weather forecast widget on Android? This change will reliably annoy you

If you’ve grown accustomed to tapping the weather shortcut on your Android home screen and instantly seeing a full-screen forecast, we have bad news for you. Google is quietly burying this experience. Instead of a clear, quick display, you’ll now be greeted by a Google Search webpage – complete with ads, other search results, and everything that comes with it. Practically, this means that a simple thing that worked well on Android for years will stop working well.

A home screen shortcut that stopped being a shortcut

Weather on Android was never a standalone app in the true sense of the word. It functioned as part of the Google Search app – but behaved like a native app. One tap, full screen, ten-day forecast, air quality, precipitation. No distractions, no unnecessary content around.

That’s changing. Google has been testing a redirect to a new web interface since November, and according to 9to5Google, it is now rolling out the change to a wider range of users. The result? You tap the weather icon and a search results page opens. You’ll find the same data there – a ten-day forecast, humidity, wind, precipitation, air quality, and an AI summary of the current weather – but when scrolling, you’ll encounter other search results and everything else Google displays on a similar page.

It’s not a catastrophe. But it is a measurable step backward in user experience, and that without any apparent reason on the user’s part.

Pixel Weather exists. Just not for you

The ironic part of the whole situation is that Google owns a beautiful native weather app. It’s called Pixel Weather, it looks great, it behaves exactly as a weather app should – and it is exclusively available only on Pixel phones. The rest of the Android world, meaning the vast majority of users of this system, cannot install it.

So Google is doing two things at the same time: making the weather experience worse for all regular Android users while simultaneously keeping a better alternative as an exclusive advantage for its own phones. Maybe it’s a coincidence. Maybe not.

An A/B test that doesn’t intend to end as an A/B test

We’ve seen a whole host of such changes from Google in recent years. Functioning features disappear as part of “testing,” a few months later a server switch is flipped, and the change is done – without announcement, without explanation, without the possibility of going back.

Not every device has registered the change yet – some users on the latest Google Search beta still see the original interface. But the exception will gradually become the rule.

What to do about it?

If you miss the native weather experience or will soon start missing it, there are plenty of alternatives. Weather by Samsung works well on devices from the Korean manufacturer, while 1Weather or Weather Underground are reliable choices for the rest. And if you’re willing to reach into your wallet, Carrot Weather will offer more features than you’ll ever need.

But all of that is actually a secondary point. The main question is different: why does the world’s largest mobile operating system manufacturer not have its own weather app available for everyone on this system? And why does it hide the one it has behind the walls of its own hardware? You probably know the answer.

Which app do you use for weather forecasts?

Source: 9to5google