Google’s News & Weather App, AKA The ‘Genie Widget’ Gets A Massive 2.0 Update And A Full Play Store Release [APK Download]

Google’s News & Weather app, AKA the “Genie” widget (after the APK name), has been more or less unchanged for years. The app comes with Nexus devices and some other relatively stock Android hardware, but aside from a few visual touches, the feed-based news and weather widget has been basically unchanged. Google has finally broken the app onto the Play Store for independent updates. The 2.0 release, years in the making, is now available for most 4.0+ devices. We’ve uploaded the APK as usual, since some users are getting location-based blocks.

  

The overall app has been given a visual makeover, including a white Google Now-style theme, a sidebar menu, and more options for nested stories. The widget itself has been updated as well: stories in the 4×1 widget can now be manually scrolled, and the weather-only widget now has a 5-day forecast. There’s also a 2×3 widget that can be expanded to fill an entire page, showing content in a scrolling, feed-style list. We’ll have more in-depth analysis on the improved News & Weather app and widgets soon.

Update: We wanted to get the downloads out to you as soon as possible, but after using the app for a while, I have to say that Google has improved it in just about every possible way. As a daily user of the “Genie” widget for more than four years, I’ve come to love its simplicity and flexibility. The same basic layout is included, but the app visuals and design have been brought forward into the KitKat (and in some places, Android L) era.

In case it isn’t obvious, the darker screenshots are from the old version, pre-installed on the Nexus 5. The lighter ones are for 2.0.

Widgets

The standard 4×1 widget that’s been there forever remains structurally the same, but there are

1. AndroidFileHost mirror
2. MediaFire mirror
3. ZippyShare mirror
4. MEGA mirror

Thanks, Frederico Silva and everyone who sent this in!