Pokemon GO stops working on some iPhones and Android 5 in October

This week Niantic sent out a release stating that Pokemon GO would no longer work with a certain set of phones and operating systems starting in October, 2020. All phones will see a major Pokemon GO update in October of 2020. At that time, Niantic will end support for Android 5 (and lower), as well as iOS 11 and lower. All iterations of the iPhone 5s and iPhone 6 will end support for Pokemon GO.

If you own an iPhone 6 or an iPhone 5s – or any version of the phone that came out before the iPhone 5s – you'll have no support from Niantic in the near future, for Pokemon GO. You MIGHT still be able to play Pokemon GO for a short period, after the update is released. But once the update is out and required by Niantic to access Pokemon GO, that's the end of the road.

If you've been using an iPhone 5, iPhone 4s, iPhone 4, or by some miracle you've been using an iPhone 3GS, iPhone 3G, or the original iPhone to play Pokemon GO, your days are numbered. Unless you've got some sort of fancy hack-bypass (which we definitely do not recommend) to get the app to think that you're using a newer phone, you won't be able to play Pokemon GO.

The Android situation is a little different. If you're using a smartphone that was first released in the year 2014 (or thereabouts), and it's gotten no major update from Google since then, you'll soon be out of luck if you want to play Pokemon GO. Google released Android 5.0 Lollipop in June of 2014, and most major smartphones released after that date worked with Android 5 Lollipop until April of 2015 when Android 6.0 Marshmallow was released.

If you purchased a brand new phone starting in the summer of 2015, you're probably still good to go for Pokemon GO. It's only Android 5 and older that wont work with Pokemon GO starting in October, 2020. Take a peek at the timeline below for more information on recent updates to Pokemon GO!