Weather Map is the best Pixel Weather feature, and it makes the new app worth the wait

Much like Google’s messaging app strategy, its weather app strategy has been a mess. With the launch of the Pixel 9, Google has finally launched a dedicated Pixel Weather app that gives Pixel users a one-stop shop for all their weather information needs. We have spent plenty of time with the new Pixel 9 series and its new Pixel Weather app, and new highlight features like the Weather Map and AI-powered summaries make it worth the wait. Welcome to the party, Google. You’re very late, but we’re glad that you finally came.

Google’s Weather app dilemma

Google’s Pixel flagships have had a lackluster Weather app situation. The phones shipped with a Weather app out of the box, but the app didn’t really do much outside of integrating with the Clock app. The app did not have a launcher icon, so you couldn’t launch it independently. You could see the current weather information for cities you added to the Clock app, but you couldn’t see forecasts or other relevant information.

Outside of this Weather app, Pixel’s At A Glance widget also provides weather information on your home screen. If you click on the widget, you’re taken to a weather info page within the Google app — and not the real Weather app.

The Google app served as the destination for your weather queries, but users who wanted richer results and forecasts at their fingertips had no choice but to turn to other third-party solutions. For a phone lineup that prides itself on rich user experiences, it was a rather sorry and confusing situation.

The Pixel Weather app finally gives Pixel users a good weather solution

Yes, Google’s weather app situation remains messy, and a dedicated app adds more to the clutter. But the Pixel Weather app is pretty damn good at what it does, to the point that we hope this is the final unifying solution for Google’s weather app dilemma.

On the Pixel 9 series, the new Weather app has its own dedicated launcher icon, making it easy to launch from the app drawer or the home screen. It also opens by default when you tap the weather info in the At A Glance widget. Excitingly, it also serves timely notifications and widgets.

As a side note, you can continue to search for the weather inside the Google app. You will still get all the weather information that was present here if you prefer this over the Pixel Weather app.

We now have some decent Weather widgets

The new Weather app goes a step further and brings us dedicated weather widgets. There are only two of them right now, but you can extend the larger widget to show two days of weather forecasts right on your home screen.

Your saved places don’t carry over, but it’s not the end of the world

There is a minor annoyance in that your previously saved locations don’t carry over from the Google app. So, for your first setup of this new Weather app, you must search and add your places again.

Thankfully, this is just a one-time annoyance, and you can quickly get past it. The Pixel Weather app connects to your Google account, so the cities you add now will get synced across your other devices.

The Pixel Weather app works great after a short setup

Once you have set up your cities, the Pixel Weather app displays them all on its landing page, alongside current weather conditions and the temperature. It’s a quick and easy way to track two key metrics with just a glance.

Further, you can change the theme, choose the units displayed, toggle the AI weather report on or off, and enable notifications for the weather forecast for your area as well as in all the cities you have saved.

You can also drill down further to see the exact forecast of a city or town by selecting it. The AI report for each place will then appear at the top.

This new AI Weather report is a nice touch, contextualizing the numbers into more actionable insights. Believe it or not, not everyone understands the numbers you throw at them about the weather, so knowing what the weather feels like in layman’s terms and what to do next is helpful.

Below the AI report, you will see many info cards displaying hourly and daily forecasts. This is followed by more elements for humidity, wind, sunrise and sunset timings, precipitation, visibility, UV index, and pressure.

And yes, you can tap any day in the 10-day forecast to open its detailed projections. These also include data like wind, humidity, precipitation, and more.

The new Pixel Weather app lets you dive into the details

What I like about the Pixel Weather app is that every element has a standalone screen with more information, letting you drill down further into the subtopic you care about. Google also includes explanations for each of these and what their value means, so if you don’t know why the atmospheric pressure or UV index matter, you can now read about them.

The elements on the main screen, other than the AI report or the hourly report, can be rearranged so you can customize the order of the landing screen to surface the information you care about towards the top. You cannot delete any element, but you can push the unnecessary ones towards the bottom to make them easier to ignore.

Weather Map is a neat addition that lets you explore nearby weather

Weather Map is a new addition to the Pixel Weather app that you may not have heard about. For some cities, namely those in the US, EU and the UK, the app shows the rain forecast on a map and you can move around the map to see nearby cities.

Oddly enough, it won’t let you cross continents. So, if you start checking the Weather Map from Paris, you can check out the weather in Norway, Scotland, or Croatia, but you cannot scroll far enough to see what is happening in New York. If you want to check those cities out, you must start from a location closer to them on their continent.

Weather Map is uniquely handy as it lets you see nearby data and the evolution of rainy clouds with an eight-hour precipitation forecast. I can foresee this being handy on a road trip, for example, as it can give you a heads-up on the weather conditions in your vicinity without needing to add every specific town or city to your landing page.

Google nails the basics with the new Pixel Weather app, and then some

As mentioned, Google is quite late to the party here, but it has arrived in style. There are third-party apps that provide more data, more widgets, or other party tricks, but the new Pixel Weather app gets all the basics right, which is good enough for most people not to need another app.

There’s everything you need to know about the weather for places you care about. The bits you don’t need can be easily ignored. Features like AI forecasts and the Weather Map are nice touches that add to the delightful Pixel 9 experience.

What do you think of the new Pixel Weather app on the new Pixel 9 series? Do you like the look and functionality? What is your favorite feature? Do you want the app to become officially available for other smartphones? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below!