It appears Google has quietly killed its weather API
Last month, Google announced plans to shutter iGoogle, among a bunch of other services. Many developers and users were (and still are) outraged, but at least they have some time to breathe: iGoogle isn't going away until November 1, 2013.
Context & Ripple Effects
The weather API's apparent death fits a long arc: Google killed its Search API back in 2006, shuttered its Science Data Service in 2008, and in May 2011 published an official list of APIs scheduled for shutdown. What makes this one different is the silence — no deprecation notice, just a dead endpoint, which is why the report remains unconfirmed rather than announced.
It also lands mid-cleanup: Google has already confirmed it will shut down iGoogle and several other services on November 1, 2013, a decision that drew developer outrage at the time. A quietly removed weather API suggests the same consolidation is happening to endpoints nobody was told about.
First-order effects
- Developers whose apps pull weather data from Google's free endpoint are losing their data source with no migration window or official replacement named.
- iGoogle gadget authors now face two clocks at once: the confirmed November 1, 2013 portal shutdown and undocumented API removals arriving before any formal deadline.
Second-order effects
- Third-party weather data providers become the default landing spot for displaced developers, converting Google's silent exit into paid-subscription demand for commercial forecast APIs.
- Every team still building on free Google endpoints has fresh evidence that 'free' carries shutdown risk, pushing integrators toward providers with contractual uptime commitments.
Third-order effects
- If quiet removal becomes standard practice, Google's developer platform shifts structurally from open-by-default APIs to a curated set tied to revenue-generating products, and third parties start discounting the longevity of anything Google gives away.
- A deprecation-notice norm — advance warning, migration paths, sunset dates — becomes a competitive differentiator for rival platforms courting burned developers.
The trend: Google is steadily retiring free, open APIs in favor of a smaller set of product-tied services, and the weather API looks like the latest casualty taken without even a deprecation notice.