Build a weather app

The Weather category is in beta
At this time, anyone can publish weather apps to internal testing, closed testing, and open testing tracks on the Play Store. Publishing to production tracks will be permitted at a later date.
Nominate yourself to be an early access partner →

Weather apps let users see relevant weather information related to their current location or along their route. Weather apps can also provide navigation capabilities – see Build navigation apps for cars for more details on building navigation apps.

Declare the weather category in your manifest

Your app needs to declare the androidx.car.app.category.WEATHER car app category in the intent filter of its CarAppService.

<application>
    ...
   <service
       ...
        android:name=".MyCarAppService"
        android:exported="true">
      <intent-filter>
        <action android:name="androidx.car.app.CarAppService" />
        <category android:name="androidx.car.app.category.WEATHER"/>
      </intent-filter>
    </service>
    ...
<application>

If your app can also be used for navigation, it must also follow the guidance found at Declare navigation support in your manifest when declaring its category. The intent filter used to declare your app's category should include both categories:

<intent-filter>
  <action android:name="androidx.car.app.CarAppService" />
  <category android:name="androidx.car.app.category.WEATHER"/>
  <category android:name="androidx.car.app.category.NAVIGATION"/>
</intent-filter>

Implement your app's functionality

To implement your app, refer to Using the Android for Cars App Library on how Car App Library apps are built. Also, be sure to familiarize yourself with the Car app quality guidelines for weather apps, as your app will be reviewed against these guidelines.

Draw maps

Weather apps can access the MapWithContentTemplate, which can be used to display lists and other types of content alongside a map that is rendered by your app. See Draw maps for more details on using this template.

To access the template, your app needs to declare either the androidx.car.app.MAP_TEMPLATES or androidx.car.app.NAVIGATION_TEMPLATES permission in its AndroidManifest.xml file:

<manifest ...>
  ...
  <!-- Use the MAP_TEMPLATES permission if your app doesn't provide navigation functionality -->
  <uses-permission android:name="androidx.car.app.MAP_TEMPLATES"/>

  <!-- Use the NAVIGATION_TEMPLATES permission if your app provides navigation functionality -->
  <uses-permission android:name="androidx.car.app.NAVIGATION_TEMPLATES"/>
  ...
</manifest>