Back in December, Google started rolling out a dedicated “Weather” icon that appeared in the app grid on Pixel phones and tablets. In recent days, this shortcut has been removed.
This “Weather” shortcut appeared via a server-side update on most of our Pixel devices. (It’s unclear if it ever became available on non-Google devices.) The circular icon simply depicted the sun and a cloud. It was the same as the “Add to homescreen” shortcut, but without the Google app icon badge in the corner.
As of earlier this month, this shortcut was still appearing on newly set-up Pixel phones.
Over the past few days, the Google Weather icon disappeared from the app grid. If you previously placed it on your homescreen, the Google app replaced it.
This rollback is quite unfortunate as it could have been a step towards Google Weather becoming its own experience divorced from Search. As we previously called for, an independent app could benefit from faster updates and more features, including additional homescreen widgets.
In 2023, Google thoroughly redesigned the weather experience. Besides Material You, it introduced real-time 12-hour precipitation forecasts. These “Nowcasts” are powered by a MetNet-3 deep learning model. Google also introduced a “Weather” service on Pixel devices to show forecasts in the Clock app.
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