Politics

Xiaomi fixes 'tech glitch' responsible for weather app not showing border locations

Updated : October 18, 2020 07:45 PM IST

Netizens are connecting this issue with the ongoing Sino-Indian border dispute.

India on Thursday reprimanded China for its complaints about infrastructure development in Union territory Ladakh and border infringement from McMohan line.

Tech giant Xiaomi has said that a technical error in its weather app was behind its smartphones not displaying weather for locations in Arunachal Pradesh.

"We would like to clarify that the weather app on our devices uses data from multiple third-party data sources and we understand that for many locations, the weather-related data is not available on the current app," the Mi India spokesperson clarified.

A lot of Xiaomi smartphones users complained on Twitter saying that in-built weather application does not return any results when they try to find a city or town in Arunachal Pradesh, not even the capital city of Itanagar. The issue was highlighted on a youtube channel after being brought to notice by one Itanagar user on Saturday. The issue has now been fixed.

A HUGE CONCERN
Default weather App in @XiaomiIndia phones doesn't show weather of cities in Arunachal Pradesh...
RT 🔃 and circulate..
cc @PMOIndia @GoI_MeitY @rsprasad @AmitShah @HMOIndia
#TGFamily pic.twitter.com/UGLJBzFmJy
— Gaurav Chaudhary (@TechnicalGuruji) October 17, 2020

Now, any weather apps' data is provided by a third-party weather company. AccuWeather.com is the data provider of Xiaomi, OnePlus and a few other major smartphone brands. One might think that the issue is at the data provider's end but that is not the case, Itanagar's weather can be seen on AccuWeather.com but not on Xiaomi's smartphones which extract data from AccuWeather itself.

Netizens are connecting this issue with the ongoing Sino-Indian border dispute. Remember, China had included parts of Arunachal Pradesh within its international boundaries as revealed by Sky Map’s April 2020 Version. Sky Map is a Chinese authority responsible for digital maps operated by a unit directly under Beijing's National Surveying and Mapping Geographic Information Bureau.

India on Thursday reprimanded China for its complaints about infrastructure development in Union territory Ladakh and border infringement from McMohan line. “Our position on Arunachal Pradesh has also been made clear several times. Arunachal Pradesh is an integral and inalienable part of India. This fact has also been clearly conveyed to the Chinese side on several occasions, including at the highest level.” said Anurag Srivastava, official spokesperson, MEA in a press conference in the National capital.

-by Sachin Khasturia