Become a fan of Slashdot on Facebook

 



Forgot your password?
typodupeerror
×
Cellphones Android Software

Pixel Phones Are Getting an Actual Weather App In 2024 (arstechnica.com) 44

Google is rolling out a dedicated weather app on Pixel phones (model 6 and newer with Android 15) that integrates AI-generated summaries and customizable widgets. Ars Technica reports: 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.
You can download the app here.
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

Pixel Phones Are Getting an Actual Weather App In 2024

Comments Filter:
  • So Google is rolling out something that's been available in a million variants from the Play Store since around about day one. Why is this news?
    • by Fons_de_spons ( 1311177 ) on Friday November 01, 2024 @05:50AM (#64911351)
      It has the word AI in it. The block chain version did not take off.
      • by Anonymous Coward

        It has the word AI in it. The block chain version did not take off.

        And that’s exactly how to cheapen AI to the level of making it look like you’re trying to sell 3D porn technology, to Disney.

        We’ve seen all of these features in other apps and websites for a while now. As in the pre-pimp AI era. Weather is a prediction at best all day every day everywhere. The whole nowcasting thing is a nice feature when it’s accurate. Like any weather forecast.

        Dont sell me on “AI” weather forecasts. Prove AI can do as good or better a job at it fir

        • In addition if I've got a device with an HD graphical display backed by supercomputer weather resources I want to see the weather as graphs and diagrams showing me what's coming up and when, not a text version of a radio announcer circa 1924 telling me it'll rain soon.

          But, as you say, "AI".

          • I think you lost 99% of non-tech people in the first sentence. Wait, I mean the first 17 words. Maybe add the words "Do not panic" in big reassuring golden letters on the top of the app.
      • It has the word AI in it. The block chain version did not take off.

        Only because they spelled it wrong. It should have been "Block chAIn" ... :-)

    • 1) The biggest feature is you can rearrange widgets
      2) The text is so big that you need to scroll
      3) It's probably not showing pollen forecast in your country if you're a reader of slashdot.
      4) In the countries where pollen forecast is available, the sales of the Pixel amount to 2-3% of market leaders (Stats say Google sold 7.2 million of Pixels in France, compared to 266 million for Samsung, 206 million for Apple https://www.frandroid.com/marq... [frandroid.com] ).

      Overall it seems a terrible app on a negligible platform. Gue

      • Apparently it only works if you have location turned on, you cannot set it to a fixed location. Is this a subtle way to siphon in even more data from users?
    • They need an onramp to AI. Weather is something everyone is interested in to some degree.

    • by Luckyo ( 1726890 )

      Shocking amount of people don't install any new apps other than a handful of communications apps and whatever their friends or relatives ask them to install.

      This is why most android phones come with manufacturer's weather app.

    • Because 999,990 of those variants on the Play Store are garbage.

  • No thanks. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by VeryFluffyBunny ( 5037285 ) on Friday November 01, 2024 @05:12AM (#64911311)
    I'll stick to the excellent weather app that the public meteorological service provides. It's simple, easy to use, & doesn't contain any ads or tracking software. Before anyone claims that this or that app is more accurate; Who do you think weather forecasts come from?! You think those app developers run their own meteorological service?!
    • by ls671 ( 1122017 )

      I'll stick to weather web sites I access with my browser.

      • I'll stick to staying indoors.

      • The AEMET app here automatically adjusts to your location if you let it. It's convenient. It's good to know that it's not transmitting all kinds of personal information back to Google, whether it's in an app or a browser. Can't stop the AndroidOS from doing it though.
    • by cmoss ( 14324 )

      I am not finding an "official" NWS app, do you have a pointer to the one you use?

    • I have personally always liked the Xfce weather widget. It get's its information from https://www.met.no/ [www.met.no] (The Norwegian Meteorological Institute)

    • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      Which service is that?

      A useful feature that very few apps have is a hybrid satellite photo/radar view. The photo part lets you see cloud cover, which is very useful for determining how it's going to feel outside, and the radar shows you where it's actually raining and not just overcast. They can be combined and shown on a single map.

      Only Windy.com does it as far as I know. I'd pay for their app but it's a subscription instead of a one off payment, so no.

      Otherwise QuickWeather is free (open source) and works

      • Which service is that?

        AEMET: https://www.aemet.es/en/portad... [aemet.es]

        I'm not a meteorologist so radar images, etc., don't mean much to me. However, the meteorologists at AEMET make some pretty good predictions. You know, how likely it is to rain & when & how heavily, the likely temperatures, heatwaves, cold snaps, extreme weather events, if it's worth planning to sunbathe, that kind of thing; What we pay taxes for our meteorologists to do.

        If some foreign corporation wants to put themselves between me & my govt servic

  • ...now we need AI to make the forceast even more erronous and irrelevant.

  • If it's intelligent enough to figure out that in my part of the world everyone use m/s for windspeed and not km/h. Looking at the current google weather app, it displays windspeed in km/h with no settings to change it with a big red warning for strong winds that link to the government meteorological institute that use m/s. All local TV weather reports use m/s, newspapers, the radio sea report, etc, etc.

    (Yes, this annoys me more than it should)

  • by Ecuador ( 740021 ) on Friday November 01, 2024 @07:30AM (#64911521) Homepage

    A shameless plug, but it's completely free with no ads: Xasteria Weather for iOS [apple.com] is designed for amateur astronomers, as it includes things like astronomical seeing and transparency forecasts, light pollution maps etc. It's for iOS because I enjoyed writing Objective C and did not enjoy Java (which was the Android option when I started), so while I mostly use Android, I keep an (older obviously) iphone handy just for this and my other astronomy app [apple.com] ;)
    If you want to build your own weather service/app, I have open sourced the Perl API clients that I use for my own proxy servers on CPAN [metacpan.org], the one based on 7Timer is free / no API key is needed (and includes the astronomy stuff), while OWM is with API key but there is a free subscription level, while WeatherKit requires a developer account.

  • by kalpol ( 714519 ) on Friday November 01, 2024 @07:41AM (#64911533)
    That plus any of the myriad really excellent radar apps. Hopefully this can be disabled, but I doubt it.
  • Please don't just install shit on my phone. I want to choose what apps are on my smart device.
  • "...Apple's such a copycat, Android did it first." Oh, wait.
  • ... dedicated weather app ...

    Everyone else (Apple/Samsung) tells you what crap must be on your phone, so Google will do it too: Actually, that's been Google's motto for a long time. They made the most popular excuse for spy-ware, only this year? That Google didn't need a 'must-have' applet, reveals how much spyware is built-in to Android.

  • If it is an LLM will it hallucinate?

Life is a whim of several billion cells to be you for a while.

Working...