It's no secret that Pokémon GO uses data from Ingress as its foundation. In fact, PokéStops and Gyms are located where portals were in Ingress. Now, some players have found that Ingress can actually be used to zero in on rare Pokémon in Pokémon GO.
A "rustled leaves" feature appears on screen in Pokémon GO to give players a hint as to where Pokémon can be found. The hint is, unfortunately, not 100 percent clear but it's what players have to guide them on their quest to catch all the Pokémon.
The rustled leaves feature is helpful but it's not always effective. To better find where Pokémon are hiding, a Reddit user suggests running Ingress, Niantic's other augmented reality mobile game, a move that has been confirmed by other players.
SkyriderRJM explained that one of the similarities between Pokémon GO and Ingress was that spawn points in the former are linked to XM generation in the latter. As such, Ingress can be used to find elusive three-footstep rare Pokémon.
In Ingress, XM marks areas that see a lot of cellular usage and is also the energy collected by players to perform certain actions within the game.
"I've found consistently, that areas that have dense clusters of XM are where you are going to find Pokemon," said the Reddit user.
Using Ingress, SkyriderRJM was able to find a Squirtle with three footprints within just 10 minutes.
Pokémon GO's massive popularity is unprecedented, especially when the mobile game has only been released less than two weeks ago. In the United States alone, the game has already taken over Twitter in terms of daily active users on Android devices.
The information SkyriderRJM shared will undoubtedly be helpful but it does revisit a concern players have: battery life and data allocation.
If Pokémon GO already consumes a huge chunk of battery for continuous play, then using Ingress for the same amount of time will likely double the drain. Additionally, both apps require data access so mobile internet usage should double as well.
Legitimate concerns but if you're in pursuit of a rare Pokémon, then going through your battery and data allocation quickly will be well worth it.
Niantic was scheduled to appear at the San Diego Comic-Con on July 21 to talk about Pokémon GO and Ingress but the panel was rescheduled to July 24 and moved to the event's largest stage, Hall H, which can accommodate up to 6,500 people.
