google: Google disabled a feature that warned users about storms, temporarily fixes it – Times of India

Google rolled out its ‘At a Glance’ widget in 2017 when it launched the Pixel 2 series smartphones. This widget has kept Android users updated about their local weather conditions since then. It can be a sunny day, haze, rain or even an expected storm, this widget always keeps its users informed about what to expect when they step outdoors. So, the users were not surprised when the widget warned its users about an approaching global storm. Later on, it was discovered that the storm was only going to hit the Philippines and the widget has warned all the Android users around the globe about it.
The ‘At a glance’ widget developed by Google, recently warned millions of people about a brewing storm in the Philippines. Although, this sounds like a crucial piece of information that the users would want the widget to inform people about, but only if the users are residing in the Philippines or the nearby areas.
On the contrary, the widget has warned millions of Android users across the globe, instead of warning the people in and near the Philippines about the storm. Android Police reported that Android users worldwide got a warning for a public storm from PAGASA (the Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration).
This sudden global warning about the storm might have led to momentary panic but it was later on discovered as a false alarm for the world as the storm will only hit the Philippines and we will not be witnessing a global catastrophe.
Google’s fix to this issue
Reports blame a bug in the widget for this false alert that caused a momentary panic among some users and Google will take some time to resolve this issue permanently. The company has released a patch as a temporary fix that disables the Severe Weather Alerts for Android users. If you try to flip it on manually, Google will ignore your preference and it will be switched back off.
We hope that this is a temporary fix for this issue so that the widget doesn’t end up raising such a false alarm again and the tech giant will roll out a permanent fix for this bug.