
During my first few days of playing Pokemon Go, and impressive bird-like shadow appeared in my Nearby section. Wanting to strike before it disappeared, I rushed out of my home, trying my best to catch it. Unfortunately, I never actually encountered it. Using the old Nearby system, I wandered in circles with no meaningful way of tracking my progress. As it turned out, the game was actually glitched during that time where the steps weren’t decreasing in count as you got closer. I’ve done many embarrassing things in my day, but aimlessly walking around a kids playground as parents curiously watched me was up there.
After this incident, I started using Pokevision. Unlike the Nearby system or the crowdsourced solutions that were popular early on, Pokevision taps directly into the game’s API to show the exact locations of nearby pokemon, as well as how long they’ll be there. Whether you view it as cheating or as a valuable tool for catching them all, it’s certainly a game-changer.