Facebook is targeting weather apps with its latest update for desktop, iOS, and Android. The social network is rolling out a weather tool that offers a five-day forecast, along with personalization options and notifications.
You may have spotted limited weather data in other sections on Facebook, such as places and events pages, but this info is restricted to the temperature and a one-word forecast summary (i.e., sunny). However, Facebook’s new offering is a complete weather tool that is more akin to Yahoo Weather and Apple’s Weather app.
Located in the Facebook app’s ever-expanding “more” menu bar, next to other tabs including “events,” “pages,” and “Moments,” the weather feature is automatically set to your current location. You can tap the settings icon at the top right of the display to add additional locations, and change the temperature to either Fahrenheit or Celsius. Desktop users can find the weather in the shortcuts sidebar on the News Feed.
The tool offers an hourly forecast for the day, with highs and lows regarding temperature, plus a five-day forecast with similar information. Facebook’s weather data is supplied by The Weather Company’s application programming interface, a link to its website can also be found at the bottom of the feature.
You can switch between your saved locations via the settings tab. Additionally, Facebook says it will begin testing notifications next week, with all updates rolling out to users across iOS, Android and desktop in March.
The update is part of Facebook’s efforts to show people relevant messages at the top of the News Feed. Alongside reminders of events and holidays, Facebook will also display weather messages, complete with colorful cartoon images, atop the News Feed — these will include links to the complete five-day forecast.
“Our goal is to develop products that connect people to the things they care about most and create moments of joy in people’s day, like simply telling you that it’s going to rain later,” a Facebook spokesperson told Digital Trends via email.
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