Why crowdsourced Pokemon GO apps are now the way to go
Rest in peace, Pokemon GOunofficial companion map apps. And long live those same apps.
The run enjoyed by apps like GO Gear and services like Pokevision.com was a fun one. They worked by using Niantic's API for Pokemon GO, essentially peeking behind the curtain to determine exactly where different Pokemon would spawn and how long they'd stick around.
While some players decried them as cheats, there's no doubt that having the info they provided made the game a lot more purposeful than simply stumbling around and hoping to find pocket monsters you'd never encountered before. But as the saying goes, all good things come to an end, and with the game's most recent round of updates, Niantic more or less neutered those apps, explaining that the extra strain they added to the game's servers was hindering the experience of the masses.
Thus, Pokevision has gone from essential to useless just like that, and apps that worked in similar fashion have also been cut off at the source. What hope is there now for Pokemon location apps?
The answer lies in crowdsourcing, and happily, that's how many of these apps worked all along. Instead of relying on game data, they use players' voluntary reports of where Pokemon are spotted to fill others in.
We've already filled you in on a few of these, but in the interest of helping you track down what you need now that Niantic has made its changes, here are a few unofficial Pokemon GO locator apps worth checking out.
Poke Radar for Pokemon GO
FREE!
Poke Radar was one of the first map apps to really zoom up the App Store charts, and it's a solid choice. Its interface is easy to use, and its popularity means more people are likely to be providing it with data in your area. Its only real drawback is a lack of a way to filter for Pokemon you do or do not want to find except to track one type at a time.
PokeFinder - for Pokemon Go
FREE!
PokeFinder isn't quite as clean from a visual sense as Poke Radar, but it's still fine in that respect and easy to use as well. It also offers notifications for up to three Pokemon that you set to track in your area, and you can also toggle on an option to only show 'Highly Rated Monster Spots,' though it's unclear exactly what that entails.
Poke Locator for Pokémon GO - A Free Radar & Map
FREE!
Hopefully you are sensing a pattern with these app names by now. Poke Locator is yet another entrant in this same field, offering much of the same functionality. One of its unique features is that it allows users to upvote or downvote certain locations if they feel the information is especially useful or inaccurate.
Choosing between any of these three or similar apps is ultimately going to come down to whose info you trust the most, and since that's provided by fellow Pokemon GO players, that might mean testing them all out to see who rules your area. The nice things are that they are all free and take up little space in your phone's memory, so until Pokevision returns, they're likely to become some of your more useful monster hunting tools.