January 29, 2017
Looks like Niantic is back on their regular update schedule! It seems we aren't getting a Lunar New Year event but it looks like some of the major bugs from the previous update have been dealt with.
Trainers,
Pokémon GO is in the process of being updated to version 0.55.0 for Android and 1.25.0 for iOS devices. Below are some release notes and comments from our development team.
Reduced the starting load time on Android devices.
Resolved Android connectivity issues for the Pokémon GO Plus accessory.
Integrated iOS wheelchair support for use with Apple Watch.
Minor text fixes.
—The Pokémon GO team
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Real Patch Notes
As usual,
The Silph Road has done excellent work in unpacking some of the hidden details of the update from the APK. You can find a summary of these and some of our own findings below.
Bug Updates
It seems that the game now takes less RAM but more CPU making some people's devices heat up. As far as the GO+ fixes are concerned, our testing finds that there are still some connection issues so maybe this only applies to some phones. The way that switching between music apps and Pokemon Go is handled has also changed for Android.
Animation Changes
There have been a number of minor animation changes. Some attacks now feature different animations in gyms and the flee and jump animations for Pokemon have been modified slightly.
Unown Medal
It seems that a medal for collecting Unown forms is now in the game code! We don't know when they'll start spawning but it gives us a fresh challenge for Generation 2.
Sort Order Changes
The "Name" sorting method in your Pokemon storage has now been updated to be consistent with ASCII standards. You can see what those are by clicking
here. The most notable change is that the order of punctuation and other symbols has been shifted around. Additionally, all capital letters now appear before lower case letters. The same applies to katakana and hiragana if you happen to name your Pokemon in Japanese.
Critical Catch
Some code has appeared with the words "Critical Catch". In the main series games, each time a ball is thrown, there is a chance of a critical capture. Critical captures increase the chance of catching a Pokemon based on how many of that species of Pokemon the player has caught before. This may mean that the Collector or Kanto medals will start to influence catch rates. Critical catches don't seem to be implemented yet as far as we can tell.
Encounter Items
The game code hints at changes to encounter items. We don't know what these are yet but early versions of the APK hinted at other types of berries. Generation 2 in the main series games also added additional balls so that's another possibility. Also in the main series games, sometimes a wild Pokemon would be holding an item. Maybe we'll have a small chance of gaining items from catching Pokemon sometime in the future?
Candy Award Item Type
We're not sure what this could be right now but perhaps an item that increases candy similar to how lucky eggs operate? Or it could be something like "rare candy" in the main series games that could increase the level of any Pokemon.
Other Additions
Some
additional code has been added related to shiny Pokemon and genders. A
few placeholder sponsors were also added. That's it so far but we'll
update this page as we dig deeper into new chang
