Politixia
Google has found a new way to display weather temperature on Android Auto. This time, it won’t be exclusive to large screens, as the company has turned to a rather entertaining yet bizarre idea.
Evidence found in the most recent Android Auto build (version 17.6) indicates that Google will turn to a racoon (yes, racoon) to show the weather info.
Google will use the viral raccoon Jimothy as an animated character to display the weather temperature on Android Auto. While most people will probably think of Clippy by this point, Jimothy has a different role. It won’t be a helper but only a way to show the current temperature in a way that’s supposed to work on small screens, too.
The animated raccoon will appear on the screen over the music card in the Coolwalk interface. It’ll walk around on the screen to let you read the info it shows, while the music card background changes to the appropriate conditions.
For example, while the raccoon shows the weather temperature, such as 25 degrees Celsius, the media card background can update to rain, therefore letting you see a forecast summary in just a second.
The current implementation feels half-baked, and the raccoon is barely visible. It’s a very small character that appears on the screen and – the biggest problem – could become distracting, considering its readability is very reduced.
I’m not sure that an animated character that shows up on the screen and triggers various visual effects is the right way to go, but Google will probably refine this approach and make it work more efficiently on Android Auto.
Google has so far tried all kinds of concepts, and the most recent debuted with the launch of the Coolwalk interface several years ago. The Coolwalk UI divides the screen into multiple cards, and each card is used by an app category, such as navigation and music.
Google wanted the weather information to receive a dedicated card, but it eventually discovered that there’s not enough room on most screens to enable this configuration.
When the Coolwalk update rolled out, Google enabled the weather card only for portrait screens, where, technically, Android Auto had the necessary screen estate to include this information. Google promised to bring the same feature to landscape displays, but this never happened.
Previously, Android Auto displayed the weather information in the status bar, and while the same approach can be used today, it looks like Google has different plans in mind.
The new raccoon-powered design is still in the experimental phase, and I wouldn’t hold my breath for a production rollout. However, it’s a good thing that Google hasn’t abandoned the idea of showing weather on Android Auto, and at one point, users might actually get this feature back on their screens.
GIPHY App Key not set. Please check settings