If you are just waking up, don't waste a second, but fire up your Apple Store or Google Play app, find Pokemon go, and hit update. Yep, the long-awaited update with the Buddy Pokemon companion system is finally here, released officially by Niantic yesterday after two excruciating weeks of teasing and limited testing.You can now choose a favorite Pokemon as a Buddy to walk alongside you in your endeavors (just hit the hamburger menu for customizing your character, and choose Buddy to assign one). Not only is it cool to have a Snorlax towering behind your back when you stroll the streets, but those are very rare to find if you don't hatch them from an egg, and walking with your Buddy makes it find its own candy now and then.
We say now and then, because each Pokemon has to walk different distances to collect a candy for its own arrested development, and in the case of the Snorlax it is no less than 5km. A humble Pidgey will command just 1km of walking around, of course, so it really depends on what you need to evolve. Unfortunately, you can't know how far you have to walk with each Pokemon before assigning them as your companion, and that erases any progress you've made with any previous Buddy, so here's a handy list for your strategizing pleasure.
As you can easily grasp, the rarest and strongest Pokemons have to be walked quite far to get an extra candy for the type, but, if you have only had one Snorlax hatched out, maxed it out down to one candy left, and there are no others in your vicinity, the Buddy system will be a godsend. Ditto for those rare Dragonites that blocked Central Park not long ago.
View Full BioDaniel, a devoted tech writer at PhoneArena since 2010, has been engrossed in mobile technology since the Windows Mobile era. His expertise spans mobile hardware, software, and carrier networks, and he's keenly interested in the future of digital health, car connectivity, and 5G. Beyond his professional pursuits, Daniel finds balance in travel, reading, and exploring new tech innovations, while contemplating the ethical and privacy implications of our digital future.
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