‘Pokemon GO’ Nearby Tracking Update: App Tracker Feature Expanding Beyond San Francisco To Other Cities

A recent Pokemon GO nearby tracking update is going to be bringing the app tracker feature to other areas beyond San Francisco. Niantic, the official game company behind the popular Pokemon game for mobile, made the announcement on Friday. This has certainly brought excitement to Pokemon GO players who were looking for expansion to happen in other cities within the United States. However, it seems that the feature has only been released to a limited area of the country.

On Friday, Niantic tweeted the announcement of the upgraded nearby tracking feature for the game. Apparently, areas of the west coast including parts of Arizona and Seattle, Washington, will now be able to use the helpful new Pokemon GO feature when playing the mobile game. The tweet was met with some excitement and some skepticism. However, those who have the new feature seem they may be enjoying a new way to hunt down pokes.

Trainers in parts of Arizona, the Seattle area of Washington state, and the rest of the SF Bay area can now test the Nearby Pokémon feature.

— Pokémon GO (@PokemonGoApp) November 5, 2016

A report from The Silph Road says the nearby tracker system is said to boost the Pokemon GO game’s radar reach up to 500 meters. It also will turn local Pokestops into radar centers for players. From there, players will see any species within the interaction radius of the Pokestops on their game. If a player taps on a Pokemon, it will select and highlight that particular Pokemon character with a pink circle. The Pokestop’s location will be shown on the zoomed out map with a pink circle and three footsteps to highlight its location on the map. With this feature, players are able to get within striking distance by going nearer to the highlighted location on the map in their attempt to capture the spawned Pokemon.

A report via Heavy on Friday discussed the popularity of this latest feature release, indicating that a “footsteps icons” tracking feature released in July for the mobile app had stopped working. In August, a new tracking system was unveiled. This newer feature showed any nearby Pokemon next to the Pokestop they were closest to, helping players know where to go in order to hunt down Pokemon they want to capture. At first, the feature was only working for a select number of players in the San Francisco area.

Now, three months after that new Pokemon nearby tracker feature rollout in August, the expansion has come for players in more areas. Unfortunately, that may not be enough to keep some players happy, as it’s only been expanded to certain areas of the west coast in the United States. Many other players are still wondering just when they might get the expansion feature made available for their mobile game in other regions of North America.

The tweet made by the Pokemon GO account on Twitter this past Friday has received over 4,400 likes and nearly 1,000 shares as of Saturday evening. However, there are also plenty of comments questioning when other cities in the United States and other countries on the globe will also get this new tracking feature for their version of the game. As expected, there are users asking what is taking so long for the game’s feature team to test this particular aspect of the game out.

The Pokemon GO mobile game became a huge viral hit this past summer, as millions of people flocked to online app stores to get the game on their mobile devices. It resulted in a mass hysteria of people playing the game out in the every day world as they tried to track down as many Pokemon as they could. Of course, with the popularity and hype of the game, it also brought about plenty of real world issues too.

These incidents have included players becoming injured due to playing the game and not paying attention to their surroundings. There were also reports of robberies or attacks, including incidents that were perpetrated by criminals using the Pokemon GO game to lure victims. As Forbes reported back in July, a stabbing occurred in Anaheim, California, and a robbery in O’Fallon, Missouri, that involved criminals luring their victims through the smartphone app.

With crimes perpetrated by criminals using the game’s features to target their victims, it’s understandable that Niantic and those who are developing new features might want to take extra care with the newest feature rollouts. However, there have been no reports that this is the reason it is taking so long to bring the new Pokemon GO nearby tracking feature to players all over the United States. In fact, no reason has been given by the game company at this point, leaving players outside of San Francisco, Seattle, and parts of Arizona in the dark as to why they aren’t included yet.

Pokemon GO players, do you have the nearby tracker feature for your game yet, or still waiting? If you have used the new feature, how do you like it so far? If you don’t have the feature yet, what is your best guess as to why it’s taking so long?

[Featured Image by Olivia Harris/Getty Images]