Google is always working on something to make our experience on Android better, and just make things easier to do. A few years ago, the search engine debuted Google Now. Which many, at first, thought it was a little too creepy. Since Google is reading all of your email and such to get this information. But many have come around to how useful Google Now truly is. Now in Marshmallow we got Google Now on Tap which brings you Google Now to any screen, basically. And it looks like now, Google is working on another feature for Google Now. It’s a rather simple one, basically a Weather shortcut on your home screen to take you into the weather section of Google Now and check out the weather. It’s something they are testing and it’s not yet available to everyone.
For those that do have it, they are reporting that it appears to work identical to how the Chrome “Add to Home screen” function works on Android. However, when you tap the shortcut, instead of jumping into Chrome, you are jumping into Google Now to get the information. Users are seeing a notification in Google Now to make the shortcut on their home screen. It’s right above the weather, which it appears that only those that have the remodeled weather card are seeing this shortcut right now.
It may not be something that most users will want or even use. But it will be nice to have that option. Seeing as it’ll be just as easy to swipe over to Google Now – if you’re using the Google Now Launcher – or just long-press your home button to get into Google Now. It will also mean another icon on your home screen. Which is something that not everyone wants. The ability to add a shortcut to the weather is indeed nice, and we’ll see if anything else is done with it before the feature rolls out to everyone, that would make it more useful, or for more people to want to use it. For instance, Google could add a live icon that would show the current temp. Similar to Apple’s calendar and weather icon on iOS.