Google’s new Pixel Weather app turns Gemini into your personal meteorologist

C. Scott Brown / Android Authority

Google does a lot of things really well, and its apps and services provide Android users with a ton of value. While Gmail’s great at email, and Maps is great at — well, it’s written right on the tin — sometimes we’re really tempted to check out the exciting stuff third-party devs have come up with. One of the biggest categories we like to explore there has got to be weather apps. Today, though, it might be worth taking a second look at what Google can do with forecasts, as a brand-new Weather app is arriving alongside the Pixel 9.

It’s not just the Pixel 9’s hardware that had been leaking like a sieve in the weeks and months leading up to today’s launch, but also software affiliated with the phone. And just about one week back, we brought you an exclusive look at Google’s new Weather app. Only a few days later, you got the chance to give the app a spin for yourself with the release of an APK for sideloading. But while the cat’s been out of the bag for a minute, there’s still a lot here worth checking out.

C. Scott Brown / Android Authority

Compared to the old Weather app, the new interface feels less busy overall, without sacrificing detail. Data elements like wind speed and barometric pressure are expressed with widget-like cards that you can now reposition in the app’s main view, letting you prioritize access to the ones that matter to you most.

Weather’s biggest new trick, though, maybe its AI-powered summaries (this is 2024, after all). Leveraging the power of Google’s new Tensor G4 chip, the reimagined Weather app will tap Gemini Nano for help condensing its forecasts into concise, actionable blurbs — and when you’ve got 10 seconds to get out the door before you’re late and just want to know if you should grab a coat/umbrella or not, that’s exactly the kind of curated info you need.

Summaries themselves aren’t exactly game-changing, so it’s really going to be up to Gemini to show us how well it understands both the weather itself and our needs for preparing for it.

Hopefully, arriving as a stand-alone app like this will help give development a little shot in the arm, because we’d love to see Google prioritize software like this. While the new Pixel Weather is making its debut with the Pixel 9, we’re optimistic that Google will officially extend support to additional handsets.

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