Pokemon Go Update Lets You Earn Rare Candy Without Having to Catch Rare Pokemon

Article by George Norman (Cybersecurity Editor)

on 12 Sep 2016

So you’ve finally caught a rare Pokémon and now you want to power it up. But this requires candy, candy that you don’t have. You can get more candy, by catching more Pokémon of that type. But with the chances of that happening being very slim, how will you ever get to power up your rare Pokémon?

Niantic offers a solution: a new feature called Buddy Pokémon. Select a Pokémon to be your buddy and you can earn candy by walking a certain distance. For example: if you select Dragonair to be your buddy and walk 5km, you will get 1 Dragonair candy.


How to add a Pokémon as your buddy


Tap on your avatar.




Tap on the 3-lines menu.




Select Buddy.




Choose the Pokémon you want to set as your buddy. Like Dragonair for example.




Once you’ve selected Dragonair as your buddy, it will show up next to you in your profile.



And next to your avatar.



You can select any of your Pokémon to be your buddy. And you can switch your buddy Pokémon at any time.

To access this feature, you need to have the latest version of Pokémon Go, mainly version 0.37.0 for Android and 1.7.0 for iOS. Niantic is currently rolling it out to everyone, so if you didn’t get the update yet, have a bit of patience.

This latest version comes with a few other chances. Here are the complete release notes:
  • Implemented Buddy Pokémon: Trainers will now be able to choose one of their Pokémon to be their buddy. A Trainer can earn Candy for their Buddy Pokémon by walking a certain distance.
  • Made it easier to select smaller Pokémon on the screen.
  • Fixed an issue where Eggs would sometimes hatch without displaying the animation.
  • Improved performance reliability when a device switches networks to no longer cause the application to hang or stop updating.
  • Pokémon GO Plus support
  • Minor text fixes.
And no more support for rooted or jailbroken devices.

Sorry, but if you have a rooted Android or a jailbroken iPhone, you will no longer be able to play Pokémon Go.

UPDATE: Workaround for rooted Androids

According to Android Police, Android Authority, and HighOnAndroid, you can use Magisk to play Pokémon Go on a rooted Android device.





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