Pixel phones are getting an actual weather app in 2024, with a bit of AI

Google's stated mission is to "organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful." For a very long time, then, it has been odd that one of its biggest platforms, Android, lacked for a real default weather app. You know, weather—the kind of information that's relevant to almost everybody, every single day and is one of humanity's default topics of conversation.

Android phones had, for a while, a "Weather" widget (and an icon inside the "At a Glance" widget) that essentially provided a framed webpage of useful weather data, accompanied by a plucky frog who illustrated the conditions. The frog was popular (even getting his own New Year's doodle), and the basic weather stats were useful. But it couldn't compare to Apple's weather, which nabbed the minute-by-minute precipitation of Dark Sky and ended its life on Android. There were lots of third-party weather apps—Ars staffers like RadarScope and Carrot Weather, for example—but it remained an odd choice for Google to mostly ignore the category.

Google, and its all-in AI obsession, cedes no longer. As suggested by Google in October, and spotted by blogs like 9to5Google, an honest-to-goodness weather app, named "Weather," is rolling out to Pixel phones model 6 and newer running Android 15, having started on the Pixel 9 models. As with most Android things, the rollout is gradual, and you may not have it right away; check that you're updated to the latest Android 15 and Play Services versions to clear the way.

Customizable, but also not

There's a prominent "AI generated weather report" on top of the weather stack, which is a combination of summary and familiarity. "Cold and rainy day, bring your umbrella and hold onto your hat!" is Google's example; I can't provide another one, because an update to "Gemini Nano" is pending.

You can see weather radar for your location, along with forecasted precipitation movement. The app offers "Nowcasting" precipitation guesses, like "Rain continuing for 2 hours" or "Light rain in 10 minutes."

The best feature, one seen on the version of Weather that shipped to the Pixel Tablet and Fold, is that you can rearrange the order of data shown on your weather screen. I moved the UV index, humidity, sunrise/sunset, and wind conditions as high as they could go on my setup. It's a trade-off, because the Weather app's data widgets are so big as to require scrolling to get the full picture of a day, and you can't move the AI summary or 10-day forecast off the top. But if you only need a few numbers and like a verbal summary, it's handy.

Sadly, if you're an allergy sufferer and you're not in the UK, Germany, France, or Italy, Google can't offer you any pollen data or forecasts. There is also, I am sad to say, no frog.

Google's Weather app isn't faring so well with Play Store reviewers. Users are miffed that they can't see a location's weather without adding it to their saved locations list; that other Google apps, including the "At a Glance" app on every Pixel's default launcher, send you to the Google app's summary instead of this app; the look of the weather map; and, most of all, that it does not show up in some phones' app list, but only as a widget.