I hope Android Auto steals this new Apple CarPlay weather feature

It is now possible to view live weather data for your driving route, alongside navigation instructions, within the Apple CarPlay interface.

This is thanks to an update from an app called Weather on the Way, which combines weather forecasts with driving directions, and now works with Apple CarPlay.

The app was updated to version 1.7.2 this month, and with that gained support for CarPlay. When a destination is entered, the app shows your route and how the weather forecast looks along the way. This includes the weather type and temperature, as well as sunrise and sunset times, so drivers can avoid driving when the sun is awkwardly low, if they so choose.

Showing weather and navigation instructions isn’t something that’s currently possible on Android Auto. To get the system working with Apple CarPlay, Piotr Knapczyk, developer of Weather on the Way, said: “We have made sure to respect Apple's strict CarPlay app guidelines (so for example no animated radar and including turn-by-turn navigation), allowing us to be the first app to be able to offer the radar view on the car's infotainment screen.”

Weather forecasts on CarPlay are only available with the application’s ‘Pro’ subscription tier, which is priced at $4.99 a month, $24.99 annually, or can be unlocked for life for $84.99. This tier also includes alternative routes, precipitation chance and amount, feels-like temperatures, wind speed and UV index scores.

The app can also issue local weather alerts, but this is only available in the US, Canada, Iceland, Israel and the European Union for now.

We're actually surprised that no one has combined weather and mapping before, and hope other mapping companies offer something similar in the future. For the sake of Android users, we also hope Google allows such a feature for apps running on its recently-updated Android Auto.

It would be great to see Apple Maps, Google Maps and Waze all offer some form of weather forecast on top of navigation mapping, so long as the interface is shown in a way that doesn’t distract the driver.