Google Discover rolling out air quality (AQI) card on Android, iOS [U]

Abner Li | Oct 21 2023 - 12:11 pm PT

In addition to directly surfacing it when searching for air quality, Google is getting ready to show AQI in Discover on Android and iOS.

Update 10/21: After pulling in August, Google is now widely rolling out the AQI card in Discover on iOS and Android (in the Google app and to the left of your homescreen). We’re not seeing AQI (or the carousel of sports, stocks, and weather) on Android tablets. (It’s also not available on the Pixel Fold.)

The company redesigned the Customize menu to use checkboxes instead of Material You switches. This is presumably to maintain visual parity between Android and iOS.

Original 8/10: Underneath the Search bar suggestions, Google Discover already shows a carousel of mini cards for:

Finance: Stocks prices and market trends from industries you follow
Sports: Event updates from teams you follow
Weather: Conditions from your current location

This will soon be joined by “Air quality from your current location.” Currently, we’re seeing a blank card in the Google app beta on Android (version 14.32) and iOS that performs an “air quality” search when tapped. However, the App Store listing today already shows what this will look like:

You get the numerical AQI with an accompanying color-matching dot and where, as well as how long ago, the reading was taken.

As part of adding air quality, Google Discover in the app and to the left of your homescreen appears to be switching to a full-width weather card. It’s mostly unchanged from the compact version, but you also get the condition and chance of precipitation.

Seeing the weather in more places is always handy. On a side note, the carousel of mini cards does not appear on Android tablets.

If this feature is ready to be rolled out, as evidenced by the setting switch that is automatically checked on in the Customize menu, Google will presumably fix the blank card in short order.