iOS: If the kid doubling as a monster wrangler in your life is hooked on catching oddly-shaped fictional animals (or if you’re addicted to the game yourself), you’d better hope they’ve got a recent phone on which to play their favorite game. Pokémon Go developer Niantic has announced an upcoming update that will incorporate Apple’s ARKit, resulting in a more polished augmented reality experience, but bar devices unable to run iOS 11 from playing the game. Sorry, trainers.
Niantic announced the change will take place at the end of February. “After that date,” says Niantic, “Trainers using affected devices may no longer be able to access their Pokémon GO accounts from that device, or use their PokéCoins or other items in their Bags. They will need to switch to a supported device to continue playing Pokémon GO.” Needless to say, that sucks. It also renders the game unplayable for people unwilling to purchase a new phone in order to continue throwing digital balls at nonexistent animated monsters.
Here’s a list of devices that will no longer support Pokémon Go as of February 28:
iPhone 5c
iPhone 5
iPad (4th generation)
iPad (3rd generation)
iPad mini (1st generation)
iPad 2
Chances are, if you’re an adult, you’ve since moved on to a more recent phone. The ostensible target audience for Pokémon Go however, is children, most of whom don’t exactly have a smartphone upgrade plan they’re paying for on the monthly.
On the plus side, enterprising youngsters could always use this to their advantage and convince gullible parents to trade in that outdated phone for a more recent model. After all, the game still works on the older iPhone 5s and iPhone 6 smartphones. Gotta catch ‘em all, right?