Tech Desk 
May 27, 2024
In December 2023, Google Pixel users started getting a ‘Weather’ icon on their phones which became visible in the app grid on the Google Pixel devices but recently, people started to notice the disappearance of this feature from the grid.
This feature was introduced through a server-side update over almost all the pixel devices as mentioned earlier. However, it’s still unknown whether it will be available on other devices other than Google Pixel. This icon was similar to ‘Add to home screen’ shortcut but except the icon badge at the side.
So, after the disappearance of this icon, your device could have replaced it with another icon.
Read more: Google Pixel 8 being endorsed on Search's homepage with Upgrade now button
This rollback is quite disappointing because it had the potential to establish Google Weather as an independent experience apart from Search. An independent app could use more functionality, including more home screen widgets, and faster updates, as we previously suggested.
In December last year’s December, Google closely remade the weather experience, along with the integration of real-time 12-hour precipitation forecasts. These ‘Nowcasts’ were fueled by a MetNet-3 deep learning model. Google launched a ‘Weather’ service on all Google phones as well as tablets to manifest forecasts in the Clock app.
