A teardown of the Search app revealed work on a subtle refresh of Weather
Google reportedly has a slight redesign in the works for its ‘Weather’ applet inside the Google Search app on Android.
9to5Google uncovered the updated design in a teardown of the Google Search app’s latest beta, version 12.19. For those unfamiliar with app teardowns, they involve decompiling an APK file and scouring the code for changes. Often, teardowns unveil code and unfinished features that hint at upcoming updates. At the same time, it’s important to take teardown findings with a grain of salt — things can always change, and sometimes new features don’t get released.
Left: Current Weather design | Right: New Weather design
That said, the updates to the Weather interface come ahead of one of the most significant design overhauls to Android in years. Android 12 is also set to usher in ‘Material You,’ a new take on design that will add personalization capabilities to Android. With that in mind, I’d say it’s a safe bet we’ll see this update release in the future.
That said, there’s not much that’s actually different with Weather, in part because it appears to be a work-in-progress. The most significant changes are rounded corners on the search bar and the new Google Account switcher accessible by tapping the profile picture on the right side of the search bar.
Left: Current Weather account switcher | Right: New Weather account switcher
There’s also a new Material Theme tab bar, new fonts and some text sports more noticeable shadows, making it slightly easier to read.
So far, the changes are minimal, but this may be the beginning of a larger overall adjustment to the Weather app. It’s worth noting it hasn’t received a significant design update in years, with most of it sporting the original 2014 Material Design.
Source: 9to5Google