Google News & Weather gets iOS 8 Today widget

Google-News-and-Weather-screenshots

Nearly a month following its App Store debut, the search giant’s News & Weather application for the iPhone and iPad has received a Today widget for iOS 8’s Notification Center, along with a handful of bug fixes.

Bumped from version 1.0.232 to 1.1.276, the software now provides an at-a-glance overview of the top three headlines within the Notification Center, but no  interactivity.

Google News & Weather is free in the App Store.

You must first enable the widget before it can be used in the Notification Center’s Today view.

Upon installing the update, pull down from the top of any iOS Home screen to invoke the Notification Center. Then tap the Edit button at the bottom and enable Google News on the widget selection screen.

Google News and Weather 1.1.276 for iOS (iPhone screenshot, iOS 8 Today widget)

The widget only shows the top three headlines from Google News, each accompanied by the source, time published and article thumbnail. Tapping any headline opens the story in the News & Weather app.

Sadly, you can’t tell the widget to retrieve headlines for specific sections such as Business, Technology or Arts, which I think is a shame.

Google News & Weather 1.1.276 changelog

  • News Today Extension (iOS 8)
  • Bug fixes

The app is iOS 8 ready and optimized for the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus resolutions. Featuring local weather forecast and stories from 65,000 publications, Google News & Weather can be personalized with any of the sixty country-specific editions and news sections such as Hollywood, NASA, Fashion and more.

If the update isn’t showing for you yet, simply tap the below iTunes URL on your iOS device and you’ll land on its page in the App Store with the Update button available.

The 9.6-megabyte app requires an iPhone, iPod touch or iPad with iOS 7.0 or later. The Today widget requires iOS 8.

[App Store]