Pokemon Go: New app lets players get alerts when creatures are nearby, saving trainers’ batteries
The game doesn’t run in the background, so players have to have it open all the time they’re walking around – leading to a surge in the number of battery packs being sold
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Your support makes all the difference.A Pokemon Go player has created a special tool that solved some of the app’s biggest problems.
PokeNotify can run in the background on Android phones and alert them when they’re near a Pokemon. That solves perhaps the biggest problem with the game as it normally is – it requires keeping the app open while looking for creatures, which can quickly drain the phone’s battery and bring sessions to an end.
To fix that problem, the app runs in the background and looks to see when a phone’s owner goes past somewhere that is a Pokemon Go location. If they do, it will bring up a pop-up alert and tell them that the Pokemon is nearby, so that they can open up the app.
Trainers get to pick which Pokemon they’re looking for so that the app won’t buzz all the time. They can also use the in-game map without walking around, so they know where to head for to look for Pokemon – something that isn’t really possible at the moment because of a glitch in the game.
At the moment, the app is available only for Android. The developer has said that he is working on an iOS version – but it’s still unclear whether or not it will be available in the App Store since borrowing the map from the game could be seen as breaking its rules.
Nintendo has already said that the makers of Pokemon Go will be bringing out a special wearable that will attach to people’s wrist and give them alerts when Pokemon are nearby. Presumably the app will have to be updated to run in the background in advance of that - but it isn’t clear whether people without the wearable will get the ability to get notifications.
The app requires users to login with a Pokemon go account. But it doesn’t require that a user logs in with the one they’re using – the app suggests that people instead sign in with a separate one, in case developers Niantic look to ban people who use the app.
The post explaining the process has since been removed by Reddit, along with an explanation that says that applications that use the Pokemon Go API violate the game’s terms of service and as a result shouldn’t be used.
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