Popular weather app Weather Timeline unpublished from the Play Store

Weather Timeline is one of those apps that does a very simple thing — display the weather — in a very simple and effective way. Sure, there are plenty of weather apps available, but Weather Timeline fits a certain aesthetic that is often ignored.

Unfortunately, the app is no more: today, it was unpublished from the Google Play Store. If you visit the link for the app, you hit a “Page Not Found” error.

Before you get up-in-arms about the removal of the app, you should know that Google had nothing to do with this. In fact, according to a statement from the app’s creator, Sam Ruston, Weather Timeline was removed by the creator himself.

According to Ruston, downloads for the app were starting to dwindle, and it needed to be taken down. He explains, “If the app was not unpublished now then it would get to a point where I’d have to introduce an in-app subscription or the app would break for new users who had just downloaded the app.”

Ruston also references another app he created and then unpublished from the Play Store — Flamingo, which was a highly-rated third-party Twitter app. As with Weather Timeline, Ruston points out that limitations beyond his control forced him to unpublish so as not to ruin the experience for current users.

Ruston says, “New people will not be able to download the app but existing users can download the app from the My Apps section of Google Play.” He also clarifies that “the app has not been abandoned and will continue to work for the foreseeable future.”

The removal of Weather Timeline is an example of how tough it can be to be a solo developer in the Android world. You can check out Ruston’s other, still-active Android apps by clicking the link below.