Niantic has some bad news for any Pokemon trainers using their Apple Watch. Pokemon Go Apple Watch support will be discontinued by the company starting on July 1.
The company made the announcement of the game no longer supporting Apple’s smartwatch in a support article last week. Instead, Niantic is looking to push players into using the game’s Adventure Sync feature.
“Because Adventure Sync allows Trainers the option of tracking their steps, earning Buddy Candy, and hatching Eggs in one mobile device rather than two separate devices,” states the announcement. “We want to focus on building Adventure Sync so that Trainers will no longer have to split their gameplay between two devices.”
For players who use their Apple Watches to track the distance they’ve traveled, Niantic is also pushing Adventure Sync.”Trainers can use Adventure Sync to track their distance by syncing their fitness apps in their phones which does not require devices such as Apple Watches.”
The Pokemon Go Apple Watch app originally launched in December of 2016. Prior to that, Apple actually demoed the app during its annual September event. The app allowed players to log outdoor walks and runs from the Apple Watch and use them towards hatching eggs and earning candy.
Niantic launched Adventure Sync for Pokemon Go back in November of 2018. Adventure Sync integrates with Apple Health and Google Fit, capturing their activity data. The game then uses this data to track the players distance traveled and use them in game. The feature replicates just about everything that the Pokemon Go Apple Watch app can do.
As the company stated, using Adventure Sync means that players no longer need to use two different apps. However, some players will likely miss having an actual app on their Apple Watches for the game. But despite those desires, players will have until the end of June to play Niantic’s hit mobile game on their smartwatches.
