In the eight years since Pokémon Go first made its way onto the global stage, the app has seen a lot of changes. While most have been beneficial updates, Niantic recently broke a bit of unfortunate news: Pokémon Go will lose support for 32-bit Android devices.
If you’re on iPhone or a 64-bit Android device, don’t worry; nothing will change for you. However, players using a Galaxy S5, OnePlus One, Sony Xperia Z3, and other devices of a similar age should consider upgrading their phone. Pokémon Go will no longer be accessible on those devices once the update goes live. Your account will still be there, but you won’t be able to play or participate in events until you load the app up on a compatible device.
In 2020, Niantic proposed taking the same action, but player backlash put a stop to it. It seems the company has decided to revisit the issue. In most cases, dropping support of older devices has more to do with security concerns; after a point, mobile devices stop receiving security updates and become much more vulnerable to bad actors and malware.
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Trainers, we previously announced that we would be deprecating 32-bit Android devices. However, to investigate player concerns, we are now postponing this deprecation to a (TBD) future date.
— Niantic Support (@NianticHelp) June 15, 2020
Without security updates, every part of the device becomes more vulnerable. Many developers will drop support once a device reaches its effective end-of-life, and practically no modern phones are still 32-bit. Most Android phones made before 2015 use 32-bit architecture, so if you haven’t bought a phone in the last eight years, it might be time to consider an upgrade.
Niantic also pulled support for 32-bit Android devices for Ingress several days ago. While it’s unfortunate for these devices to lose support, it frees up more of Niantic’s resources to focus on future development of the game.
If you are not sure if you use a 32-bit device, here’s how to find out. Open Pokémon Go and tap the Pokéball icon. Select Settings and scroll to the bottom of the page where it says Version. The last two numbers of that string of characters will tell you the version type; if it ends in -32, then you will need to upgrade your phone. If it ends in -64, you have nothing to worry about.