Got one free lure for leveling up, used it, then server issues.  Not a Pokemon caught!

Hmm, I appear to have accidentally started playing.  Whoops.

Planning on playing relatively passively though rather than wandering round with phone open, being glued to the screen.  So will check places that I'm at but not necessarily go hunting as such.  Did discover that the train doesn't stop long enough for the game to sort out the nearby pokestops and give me a chance to activate them.  Pity. 

I'm going to suggest to my significantly inactive daughter that she might want to start playing and give her a reason to get out of the house regularly and get some exercise.  Might cost me in top ups for her phone though.  Small price to pay I reckon for "accidental" exercise.

So I have heard that if you sync google maps for areas you are playing in, it saves on data use / battery life.  Maybe useful info for some of you :)

ubergeeknz:

 

So I have heard that if you sync google maps for areas you are playing in, it saves on data use / battery life.  Maybe useful info for some of you :)

 

Could you expand on that?

Sync with what?  Or pre-load the maps?

ubergeeknz:

 

So I have heard that if you sync google maps for areas you are playing in, it saves on data use / battery life.  Maybe useful info for some of you :)

 

It doesn't have any impact - at least on my phone (Nexus 4)

Battery life is shocking when playing the game - I get about an hour if lucky when I don't have my battery pack (Anker) with me

(Data usage does not worry me - i have over 10GB available and struggling to use it. However over the week I have only used 150MB)

nzkiwiman:

 

ubergeeknz:

 

So I have heard that if you sync google maps for areas you are playing in, it saves on data use / battery life.  Maybe useful info for some of you :)

 

 

It doesn't have any impact - at least on my phone (Nexus 4)

 

Battery life is shocking when playing the game - I get about an hour if lucky when I don't have my battery pack (Anker) with me

 

(Data usage does not worry me - i have over 10GB available and struggling to use it. However over the week I have only used 150MB)

 

Lunchtime test indicates about 15MB over the course of an hour wandering around the waterfront.  And about 30% of the battery (Galaxy S7).  So not totally massive on data. 

geoffwnz: pre-load the maps? 

Make the relevant parts of the map "available offline"

nzkiwiman:

 

ubergeeknz:

 

So I have heard that if you sync google maps for areas you are playing in, it saves on data use / battery life.  Maybe useful info for some of you :)

 

 

It doesn't have any impact - at least on my phone (Nexus 4)

 

Battery life is shocking when playing the game - I get about an hour if lucky when I don't have my battery pack (Anker) with me

 

(Data usage does not worry me - i have over 10GB available and struggling to use it. However over the week I have only used 150MB)

 

I get 2-2.5 hours with my Nexus 6P Using 4G and Screen on basically the entire time. No Battery saver. I have brightness down as low as I need it.

On my Note 4 I use Samsung's 'Game Tuner' app that lets you change the resolution and frame-rate that games/apps operate at.

I have Pokemon Go set to the 'Extreme Low' quality setting; setting the games resolution to 720p? at 30FPS which isn't that bad.

I've found this to be a very effective way of saving battery when you're out and don't carry around a battery pack. I'm not sure if the app works on phones other than Samsung's but it's worth a try if you do have one.

The Office next door keeps dropping lures for me!

I can tell they didn't start early today as there are no lures deployed.

Wish the Pokestop was 20m towards me, at times I can get it from my desk.

I am interested what things around your towns have you never noticed before that you have discovered because of this game?

I discovered that in Pokekohe most of the power transformers have been painted by local artists.

Looks like that Game Tuner is Samsung only; not that it would really help as GPS has always been my phones #1 battery killer

I woke up early this morning all ready to go on another hunt (and then place a lure and a lucky egg so I could evolve all the Pokemon I have (22 evolutions in the queue, mostly Weedles and Pidgys for easy XP) but found the game had been offline for 2 hours due to launching in more countries.

From Spark:

 

Spark has today launched a new “2GB GO” data pack for just $10. The pack, which is double the data and half the price of the extremely popular 1GB extra, is only available to buy during the school holidays and gives Spark customers an extra 2GB of data to use over two weeks.

Spark Head of Mobile Marketing, David Redmore, says mobile data use tends to go up over the school holidays, but this new offer is also in response to increased customer demand.

“As the country catches a new mobile gaming craze, we’ve seen an increase in data use on our mobile network nearing on 10%. We’ve also been inundated with feedback from our customers who want new ways to boost their mobile data so they can poke around and find new landmarks and friends in their towns and cities. This comes on top of the general rise in data use over the school holidays as people look to keep themselves and their families entertained.

“We want to be useful to our customers and their feedback is really important, so we quickly found a way to give them a short-term boost at a great price to keep them going,” said Redmore.

The new pack is available for a limited time to all prepaid and pay monthly Spark customers, and can be bought for $10 via the Spark app or online on the Spark MyMobile site. Customers will get an extra 2GB of data, the pack can be purchased as many times as the customer likes, but the data will expire 14 days after it is added. The pack must be purchased on or before 25 July 2016.

 

That's pretty cool by Spark to do this. Pity it only lasts for 14 days though.

Played the beta, didn't think much of it, the app was very unstable, would crash and freeze constantly, from what I can see the "release" version is only marginally better. Given how polished Ingress is (L8), I find this pretty surprising. I'm deliberately avoiding it at this stage given how much time Ingress cost me.

If it results in the TelCo's making data less ridiculously expensive, then I'll call it a net positive.

More than 5 hours since the servers went down.

So much for today's entertainment!! What else is there to do at lunchtime now ...