Niantic continue to work and iterate on their massively successful Pokemon GO, with the newest update to the game having added a long awaited feature, a whole host of performance fixes, and having removed support for jailbroken and rooted devices- presumably as Niantic continue to crack down on potential cheaters who could exploit the game.
As for the Buddy system, 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- you can think of it as a Pokemon GO take on the classic notion of your Pokemon walking beside you and getting closer to you, which has already been explored in mainline Pokemon games such as Pokemon Yellow and Pokemon HeartGold/SoulSilver, as well as in the Pokemon anime.
Pokemon GO is available right now on iOS and Android smartphones. You can check out the patch notes for the newest update in their entirety below.
- 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