Google missing in Pokémon Go

So Pokémon Go reached Denmark as well, and not ever having been part of the Pokémon craze at any point in my life, I was completely unaware of the latest Pokémon developments or this phenomenon until numerous humorous references kept rising to the top on reddit.com/r/funny. Actually I confess I purchased a deck of Pokémon trading cards for my son a few years ago, and briefly acquainted myself with the rules. But the kid was more interested in trading a few cards back and forth with his friends, and playing with some plastic miniatures he already had, so I quickly dropped that knowledge from my active memory. Since I am getting older, like my old Nexus tablet i continuously have to purge active memory, to keep it just barely useful.

Anyway back to Pokémon Go, since I am still the go-to tech guy in my family, the procedure is that I have to figure out how this and any other app is working,  with this one preferably before the high pitch whining and pestering from the my kids, became unbearable. I installed the app on my own iPhone. I am not an Apple Guy, I literally end up in furious rage every time I have to do the simplest action on one of those units that goes beyond the apple universe. Copy or move a file to my PC, share with non apple phones, copy a contact, anything you name it I have been annoyed with apple over it. Unless I drink the apple cool aid all the way, owning an apple product just seems annoying to me. My iPhone is a company issued phone, not a personal choice, as I still prefer Android Phones. This was however just a test, as the kids have iPhones and since it did not feature any out-of-apple experience, my sanity was safe. I input my date of birth and opted the easy Google login option, and presto it was working, fairly easy it seemed, gameplay was intuitive, boring in my opinion, but straight forward. So I left it at that and deleted the app again.

My daughter and son now had to get the app, but the load and unresponsiveness of the trainer register/login option left them frustrated and they came running back to me. Quickly i realized the Google option was not found on their phones. Why was this? I searched long and wide on the internet and finally I came across the answer, which I will share with you now, since you have endured the lengthy rambling prelude in lieu of finding the answer like I did.

If you input a birthdate in the Pokémon app as my kids did, and it indicates that you are younger than the allowed age of a googleaccount this google login option will not appear.

Fix. The block is locally on the phone, so…

  • on Android, easy peasy, clear the cache of the app, and type a new birthdate.
  • on iOS, nothing is easy here since there is no option on iPhone or iPad to clean a specific app’s cache unless you uninstall it entirely from your device, so that is what i did. And then typed in a new birthdate.

So there you have it, gotta catch them all.

It’s about time

[ezcol_3quarter]I have been looking for an reason to buy a new phone, and the Moto 360 watch seems like a perfect excuse. I have a the HTC One X, the first one. I found it very attractive because of its Quad Core and large screen. I ordered it back in April 2012.
All in all I have been satisfied with the phone, except for a minor issue with the screen, where the a yellow shade started to emerge.[/ezcol_3quarter] [ezcol_1quarter_end]666-htc-one-x-white-front_1340794327[/ezcol_1quarter_end]I discovered that it was a problem with the adhesive, and I got it fixed under warranty, so no big problem. I like the phone, I like the software, the performance etc. But my issue with HTC is that they pump out new phones, like their life depended on it. If that’s their business strategy, it sort of does, but perhaps the lessons from Nokia and their fall from grace, should have warned HTC of this approach. Anyhow this strategy also means that even newer phones like mine, is no longer being updated.[ezcol_1quarter]motorola-moto-360[/ezcol_1quarter] [ezcol_3quarter_end]The HTC One X was sold up until 14 months ago. That is a very short time, from purchase to being obsolete. So how does this relate to the Motorola watch, you may ask, well the watch requires the 4.3 version of the android core system, and since HTC have decided no longer to support updates the HTC One X, with new versions, the Moto 360 and my old phone is not compatible.[/ezcol_3quarter_end]

I understand that supporting numerous phones, displays is costly, and perhaps therefore HTC should take a lesson from the most successful singular mobile phone producer Apple. I have no great love for the Apple or its iStuff, but the strategy of making one phone, and doing it well, and then keeping it supported for an extended period seems preferable to the mayfly lifespan the current HTC phones have. For me at least I need to upgrade to a new phone, but I will despite my satisfaction with HTC seriously reconsider a new HTC.

Hard Reset

Jeg vil have en hard reset kommando flere steder. Min telefon havde nogle problemer med det mobile netværk, som jeg af en eller anden årsag ikke kunne tænde, i sidste måtte der en hard reset…en eller et…nå det hjalp. Men burde der ikke være en sådan funktion en masse andre steder?