The truth is that Android never had the kind of weather app that users wanted to check first. For Google, that’s particularly upsetting because, as the world’s search giant, its weather app should be the only one you turn to for accurate, aggregated data. The situation got desperate back in 2020 when Apple bought Dark Sky and took it behind its walled, fenced-off garden. Now, iPhone users have Android’s once-favorite weather app and a native app with its iconic status.
There is good news on the horizon for Android users pleading for something better. The code sleuths at 9to5Google and Android Authority are raving about a wholly revamped weather app coming to the Pixel experience. In a leaked APK, which you can sideload yourself (after considering that it is pre-release software and it’s all at your discretion), we see a glimpse of all that will be new with the default Google weather app.
The Pixel weather app will get its overdue Material makeover. The varying information panels will be modeled after the Pixel’s latest widgets. There are more rounded corners, more prominent icons, data that’s easier to peak at, and the sunrise and sunset widget makes a little more visual sense than it used to.
Sadly, Froggy did not make it into this rendition. The Google Weather Frog appeared in several Google Doodles throughout the ecosystem’s lifetime and looks to have been officially retired. Perhaps it was time for Froggy to find a lilypad where he isn’t the hero character of a weather app that Android users choose second. I’d be ready to retire if I were dealing with years of that kind of rejection, too.
Google’s Pixel weather app will adopt the color scheme you have going on with your device, whether dark or light. It will also ask you for notification permissions to push through a forecast for your current location periodically. It appears to be similar to how it currently displays on the home screen with the Pixel Launcher’s At a Glance widget. There are also reports on X/Twitter/Whatever of a weather map, which seems like it would be helpful for a place like the San Francisco Bay Area, where there are microclimates, and you can’t leave the house without preparing for the weather an hour away. However, I could not find a feature like that with the APK installed on my Pixel 8.
We’ll find out what’s special about the revamped Weather app soon enough, and maybe some AI enhancements for it haven’t yet been revealed. Google’s Made by Google event is on August 13, and it’s when we expect to hear about all that’s new with the Pixel 9 and the rest of the hardware family.
There are still plenty of third-party weather apps available to use. Weather Live is the one I turn to for its hour-by-hour predictions and wind direction since it used to be free with Google’s Play Pass. But if Google’s predictions are accurate enough, I’ll likely find myself ditching this app for one that’s native.