Google now offers a handy shortcut to weather info

Google is making it even easier to check the weather forecast on your smartphone.

After rolling out a cute new weather screen back in January, Google is now offering a handy shortcut to the weather info that you can place on your homescreen. Just search “weather” in the Google app and you should see an option to “access weather instantly from your home screen.” Clicking Add creates a shortcut on the homescreen – tap it and you will be taken straight to the cute weather screen, featuring the forecast for the day, the next day, and the next ten days.

Tapping the hamburger gives you the option to switch from Celsius to Fahrenheit, and you can easily check the weather in other locales by typing in the search box.

This little shortcut blurs the line between native apps and the web, and without doubt, it’s a big blow to dedicated weather apps. It’s really hard to justify installing and using a dedicated app when Google puts the essentials right in front of you with minimal effort.

The feature has been in testing for the past several days, but it seems that Google is now rolling it out to more users. We received it in on several, but not all, of our devices.

I know personally that weather is one of the main reasons I check Google Now, so this shortcut will definitely find a place on my homescreen. How about you?