The PokeDetector app will help you catch loads more Pokemon

Here at JOE, we like apps that make our lives as committed Pokemon trainers that bit easier.

We all fall asleep at night dreaming of the day we'll be mentioned in the same breath as Ash Ketchum, but realistically, the pathetic battery capacity of our smartphones won't allow us to have the game out and running at all times. And as much as we like the game, having to constantly whip out our devices just to find another Pidgey can be a royal pain in the arse. Luckily, it seems that some far more technical people than us have clocked on to similar frustrations, and they've designed a very handy app called PokeDetector that will notify you whenever a Pokemon is nearby, regardless of whether or not your phone is out at the time. We should probably mention at this point that the app is Android-only, which means for the time being at least, iPhone owners will have to keep Pokemon hunting unassisted. Sorry about that. You'll also need to be using a Google account when playing the game. But those who can download the app are going to wonder how they ever managed to tolerate the game without its clever functionality. As well as pinging you whenever a Pokemon appears within catching range, it also lets you view what else is in hiding in the area on an in-built map. Even better, you can set it to only notify you when a certain Pokemon pops up, and it will even tell you how long the illusive rares will be sticking around for. We can't report for sure on how kind the app is to your batteries - given that it's always active in the background - but it can't be worse than holding your phone in front of your face 24/7 in the desperate hope that Vaporeon will wander up to the postbox. Here's that download link again. Happy catching.

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