For a while I’ve been looking for a decent weather app for my Samsung Galaxy S and had last week selected GO Weather which has a pretty good widget and a very attractive app complete with video backgrounds and detailed three day forecast.
GO Weather Widget
However, I have had a slight yearning to move toward a pure Google Android experience as you would expect using an untouched Android Open Source Project (AOSP) ROM. I’d prefer to have the choice of whether or not to use the original Google applications or use what has been provided by the manufacturers and carriers. After a bit of looking around on the web, I found that the Nexus S had a news and weather app that looked pretty good, had a matching widget and its interface was very clean.
Anyway, I downloaded a copy of the Gingerbread 2.3.3 ROM for the Google Nexus S phone and had a look in the /system/app/ folder and found “GenieWidget.apk” which had the application title of “News & Weather”. It’s important to note that given that this app is a system app you can’t just copy it onto another device and execute it in order to have it install properly. Instead, you need to copy it into the /system/app/ folder on your device (which will require root access).
Once that is done though it should hopefully appear in your application drawer. Luckily for me, this application worked without too much of an issue.
Google AOSP News & Weather App (Forecast)
Google AOSP News & Weather App (Hourly Forecast)
- Google AOSP News & Weather Widget
Other apps that I also liked the look of were the clock app (which includes the current weather for the current location from the news and weather app) and the music app.
Google AOSP Alarm Clock App
Google AOSP Music App
Sure, these apps may not be a favourite for everyone but I just find it a pity that these apps aren’t available in the Android Market for everyone else to download and use. Similar to how some computer manufacturers allow you to buy a new computer completely void of customisations, bloat and nagware I’d like to see handset manufacturers offer the ability to have the pure Google Android experience.
By the way, if you are interested in the application files here they are:
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