Android Auto 4.8 hints at bringing back weather info on the car screen status bar

At Google I/O earlier this year, Google introduced a redesigned version of the Android Auto car interface with a dark theme and simplified controls. Many users felt that Google went a bit too far in simplifying the UI, however. For example, the new interface doesn’t show you any weather information at a glance, requiring you to talk to Google Assistant or launch the weather shortcut to get that info. That can be annoying when you’re driving and want to check what the weather conditions are. Thankfully, it seems that Google will be adding weather information to the car screen once again, as we spotted a new toggle in the Android Auto app for showing the weather info on the status bar.

An APK teardown can often predict features that may arrive in a future update of an application, but it is possible that any of the features we mention here may not make it in a future release. This is because these features are currently unimplemented in the live build and may be pulled at any time by the developers in a future build.

Android Auto 4.8 rolled out today on the Google Play Store, and it’s already available on APKMirror. New strings in the update show that the app will add a setting to show weather information on the status bar of the car screen. The weather information is obtained from the location of the connected phone.

<string name="settings_weather_summary">Show weather information on the car screen status bar, obtained using your phone location</string>
<string name="settings_weather_title">Weather</string>

Once the feature goes live for all, it’ll appear in the Settings page of the Android app as shown below:

I don’t have an Android Auto-compatible vehicle or head unit, but we’ll update this article with images of the new feature once we get them. We’ll also keep an eye out on this feature to inform you when it goes live.

Android Auto - Google Maps, Media & Messaging (Free, Google Play) →

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Thanks to PNF Software for providing us a license to use JEB Decompiler, a professional-grade reverse engineering tool for Android applications.

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