Take your phone out of your sock, the Pokemon GO GPS glitch won’t work anymore

By the evening of July 28, multiple users reported that the Pokemon GO GPS drift glitch wasn’t working, sparking a fair amount of mixed opinions. 

Some users applauded this fix. They state that it’s called “GO” for a reason, and the solution is as simple as playing outside. On the other hand, a vast majority of players expressed frustration with the situation. Most players benefit from this glitch by participating in raids that are almost out of their reach. Others just used it to hatch eggs while managing other responsibilities.

The Pokemon GO GPS Glitch used to be the safest alternative for people to get some extra steps without tricking the system with a joystick GPS or other actions that could lead to a ban. The user u/PokemonGoBao took to Reddit to say that this is not a player-focused decision by Niantic. Allegedly, the company would be taking this step to force more players into buying the Remote Raid Pass.

Contrary to what some users speculate, this is not an unfair tactic or a bug only a few could exploit.

The Pokémon GO GPS glitch takes advantage of how phone GPS works. When connected to the Wi-Fi signal, the phone’s navigation is erratic, and in areas with tall buildings, it’s even harder for your phone to set up a precise location. This makes the Pokémon GO app think that you’re moving around, when all that’s happening is your phone trying to set your exact location. Connecting and disconnecting to the Wi-Fi makes this “drift” more frequent.

Some users take this to the next level. When the phone finally comes to a fixed location, they put the phone in their sock and start spinning it. This simulates the action of moving, which messes with the internal compass of the phone. Pokémon GO then interprets this as the player moving or even running. This information is sent to the game, which may give the much-needed extra steps for egg hatching.

While this may be an unwanted fix that benefits nobody, some iPhone users reported this months ago. It appears that the fix was in a test phase for a very long time, so it was only a matter of time.

Now that players won’t be able to use the Pokémon GO GPS glitch to get those extra steps for hatching eggs or joining raids, all we can recommend is to use your play time more effectively. We posted a list of events coming up in August for players to take advantage of. If you have limited time to go out and play, make sure to do it during these special events!

For more Pokémon GO updates — and maybe future glitches ;) — follow our posts at esports.gg!