Google Discover shrinks weather info down to a chip

Kyle Bradshaw | Mar 15 2021 - 11:51 am PT

Google’s ever-present Discover feed is testing a minor design tweak that moves the weather from a wide strip down to a chip in the corner.

The Google Discover feed is available in quite a variety of places, such as the far-left page of some Android launchers, the new tab page of Chrome for Android, Google.com on mobile devices, and, of course, the main Google Search app. Atop the Google Search app’s version, you can usually find information about the weather, including the high, low, current temperature, and chance of rain.

On the latest version of Google Search beta, version 12.8, the app is testing a more streamlined design for the weather info, replacing the full-width strip with a simple Material Design “chip” in the top-left corner. Instead of detailed information about the day, the chip simply shows the current temperature alongside a pictogram of roughly what kind of weather to expect.

Google Discover feed, in dark mode, with a Material Design chip indicating the current weather

Admittedly, this makes the Google Discover page a pinch less useful, but the Discover feed has always been more about online content discovery than current information. Instead, the latter falls more under the purview of the Google Assistant “Snapshot” page, which helps you navigate your day and week.

As always, though, detailed weather information is just a tap away as the Discover page’s new chip will bring you to a Google search for “weather,” where you’ll get a full forecast and the usual friendly frog graphics.