Niantic/Reddit
In the latest Pokemon Go update, it is possible to feed a Pokemon berries without actually visiting a gym in person.
This can be accomplished in Version 0.69.0 for Android and 1.39.0 for iOS, which has not yet rolled out to players everywhere. To do so, all you have to do is go to the Pokemon info screen. You’ll now notice a new “go to gym” button there. Click that, and the game will take you to the interior of the gym in question, where you can now feed the Pokemon berries as if you were physically there.
Via Reddit user Rilakkeegan, here’s what that whole process looks like:
However, there are already some bugs present that are preventing players from doing exactly what’s in the GIF above. For one, a lot of people are getting a “walk closer to interact with this gym” error message when they try to feed Pokemon remotely, which is weird because the entire point of this feature is that you can feed Pokemon without walking closer to the gym.
It’s unclear at this time whether that’s just a bug, or whether Niantic has intentionally set up this feature so that you can feed Pokemon remotely yet not too remotely. It’s probably the former, as some players are having issues even feeding Pokemon that are in gyms very close by, including gyms that are visible on the game’s map. It looks like players who are having the best luck with this feature are within 100 meters of the gym – like the player in the GIF above – which is so close that one would wonder what the point of the function even is.
Another glitch is that on the Pokemon info screen, some players do have the “go to gym” button, but all of the other information is blank, with the game not displaying which gym the creature is in. The “go to gym” button also doesn’t work when you try to tap it. This is likely just another glitch that Niantic will have to fix in the coming hours.
Since this feature was unveiled, there has been a lot of debate among fans about its merits. On the one hand, it’s a helpful way to maintain your Pokemon’s health without having to necessarily check in on each and every gym every day. On the other hand, some are worried about that fact that anyone can give a teammate’s Pokemon berries at any time. After all, since the latest gym update, there is now actually an incentive to want your Pokemon to be kicked out of a gym so that it can return home with coins, and if your Pokemon is constantly being fed berries from other players who just want Stardust, the Pokemon could be in the gym for weeks.
Check back in later for updates about this feature in Pokemon Go.
UPDATE: Niantic announced on Wednesday that they would be temporarily disabling the ability to remotely feed berries to Pokemon in order to fix an issue, presumably the issue outlined above in which players could not do so unless they were very close to the gym.
We’ve temporarily disabled the ability to send Berries to Pokémon defending Gyms through the Pokémon info screen to resolve an issue.
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Pokemon Go: How to Feed a Pokemon Berries Remotely