New Pokemon Go Update Arrives, Here's What It Does

Pokemon Go's newest feature has arrived. A new update for the popular mobile game out now adds the daily catch bonus feature that developer Niantic Labs announced last week.

As detailed previously, players will earn bonuses for their first Pokemon catch and visit to a PokeStop every day. If you do this seven days in a row, you'll get even bigger bonuses. The patch also tweaks some Gym systems and makes "minor text fixes."

In addition to launching the new patch, Niantic confirmed it is testing a new version of the "Nearby Pokemon" feature. This is already live in San Francisco, and is now being expanded to "parts of Arizona," as well as the Seattle area and the rest of the San Francisco Bay area.

"We will continue to review community feedback, make changes if necessary, and roll this feature out to more regions," the developer said.

Niantic did not provide any kind of timetable for when the Nearby Pokemon feature will be available nationwide or in other parts of the world. The developer shut down third-party tracking features for Pokemon Go earlier this year--read this post to find out why it took action.

Pokemon Go Update 0.45.0 (Android) and 1.15.0 (iOS):

• You'll earn bonuses for the first Pokemon catch and PokeStop visit each day. You’ll receive a larger bonus when you do this seven days in a row.
• When you defeat the Gym Leader at a rival Gym, there will be a brief period of time where only you will be able to place a Pokemon in the open Gym.
• The amount of Prestige a rival Gym loses when you defeat a regular Gym member has increased. The amount of Prestige gained by training at a friendly Gym has been lowered.

• Minor text fixes

In other news about Pokemon Go, the game's Halloween event helped to boost it back to the top of the iOS App Store's highest-grossing charts.