Pokémon GO might still be one of the biggest games on the planet, but one of the app's supported devices is soon to be cut from the roster.
From 1st July, trainers who like to keep a watchful eye on their Pokédex journey using their Apple Watch will no longer be able to use the device. Plenty of other options still exist, of course - there's plenty of accessories that do similar things to the Apple Watch and you can always simply use your smartphone - but it's sad to see support end nonetheless.
Here's a brief statement from developer, Niantic:
Pokémon GO is officially ending support for Apple Watch devices. Trainers using Apple Watch will no longer be able to connect their Apple Watch to Pokémon GO after July 1, 2019.
Because Adventure Sync allows Trainers the option of tracking their steps, earning Buddy Candy, and hatching Eggs in one mobile device rather than 2 separate devices, we want to focus on building Adventure Sync so that Trainers will no longer have to split their gameplay between 2 devices.
As you can see, the support for the Apple Watch appears to be coming to an end thanks to the game's Adventure Sync feature, which allows players to sync fitness apps on their phone to Pokémon GO and track their walking distance.
Have you been regularly using an Apple Watch with the game, or does this change not affect your catching quest? Throw us a curveball in the comments.
[source niantic.helpshift.com, via vg247.com]
Comments 10
Seems an odd choice to cut a feature. But I mean, I would be surprised if even 3% of people who play PoGo used this.
Meanwhile, they make you buy a separate accessory to catch Pokémon and spin Poké Stops whilst the phone is locked.
That's functionality that could easily be done without any additional hardware.
The real reason is that they want to maintain less so they can focus on more important parts of their application. Adventure Sync does admittedly deprecate the Apple Watch functionality.
Had better result of tracking with adventure sync (steps counted by the Apple Watch) than with watch app itself... I’ll no longer be able to spin pokestop from the watch but I didn’t do it in years because of how unreliable it was and again how badly it counted steps... I remember going for a 32k run yet being unable to hatch a 2km egg, I was done with the watch app after that happened...
To be completely honest, the Apple Watch feature never worked that well. It's super finicky and I'd just end up using the phone app anyways. I think Apple limits how often the phone and watch sync, so it can't really get information about Pokestops and Pokémon in real time. I won't really miss it, because it wasn't that good to begin with.
This isn't a huge loss. I imagine most people didn't play the game using an Apple Watch anyway.
It's a bit mitigated now since the amount of walking is tracked automatically and synched when I open the app, but I still used this as a quicker and easier way to do Pogo while on my phone and such. This is frustrating to get rid of it-- it's not going to drive me to go buy the pokemon accessory
Awww... every single time there is a feature that I use it gets canceled.
The Apple Watch version of this app was absolutely terrible. It always required the phone to have the app running at the same time in my pocket. It would hardly ever notify me if there was a Pokemon nearby or a Pokestop...and the times it would notify me of a pokestop, the game would always crash when I tried to spin it from my wrist. It was soo poorly developed and conceived that I just gave up and went back to the far-superior Pokemon GO Plus (and later the Pokeball Plus) for catching Pokemon and spinning stops without my phone in my hand. And with those two devices, I could turn my phone's screen off and still use them. The Apple Watch is an incredible device but when developers don't give it the proper attention it deserves, the apps end up being hot messes.
I won’t miss it. I attempted a couple of times to use it but found it to be a frustrating experience.
It was a poor peripheral, in terms of the mobile game, and that's not even mentioning the glitch that caused one to be locked out of their account on the iOS app.
Tap here to load 10 comments
Leave A Comment
Hold on there, you need to login to post a comment...