Google explains why there is no Froggy in Pixel Weather

Pixel Weather is now widely available on older devices, and this week's Made by Google podcast looks at the app's design and why Froggy isn't featured.

For over 300 major cities around the world, Pixel Weather displays AI-generated images of landmarks and skylines as backgrounds. Google wanted to “make the background cityscapes a little more subtle” to “keep this data front and center.” In comparison, on Google Weather, the frog mascot is clearly visible just below the temperature.

While the Pixel Weather team discussed Froggy, they ultimately didn't include the mascot because it didn't fit with the app's subtle aesthetic: “It was a difficult decision because as a character, basically half the population loves him and the other half loves him the population has a different feeling about him. And we didn’t want to just serve one side.”

When deciding to develop the app, Google noted that a weather app is “the third most used and important application on your device”:

“It’s time to truly deliver that premium experience out of the box to our users. So that something that you check so often, at least during the week and definitely during the day, is ready right when you set up your phone.”

The podcast also mentioned an animation haptics feature where you feel a “vibration that corresponds to the density of the rain under the current conditions.” Google's support article also mentions this feature as “adding vibrations to the Pixel weather background animations,” but it doesn't appear to be available yet on the Pixel 9 devices we reviewed.

There's also an Easter egg where, when it's raining, you can “press the current status icon next to the temperature” to get a “beautiful rain soundscape.” We don't see that yet either.

In other interesting news, Google plans to expand the recently introduced Pollen Weather block, while the team is proud of the app's list view of saved locations:

“One of the big drawbacks we've seen as a team is that with some weather applications you get a kind of cut-off point as to how many locations you can save and look through. So we really wanted to give you as much freedom as possible in our list view. There is no longer an upper limit today. I think we’re getting closer to 30 or 50, which should hopefully be well above the number of saved places that people need.”