Maybe that's just me, and I know why they removed the feature (only on iOS systems though), just venting.
I don't know the reason. What is it? We were travelling last week (more on that later) and connection (my cell connection that is) was really spotty. I must have clicked on the log out button by mistake when it failed to log me in once. I don't think that damn thing should exist - because of course who the hell remembers their Google password? I made mine years ago for a YouTube account. Luckily I had written it down and brought a copy of my password list with me - but it cost me hours of Pokémon hunting till I got back to the list at my hotel.
So, yeah, I'm all for anything that locks the screen and prevents mistaken button presses. I could see deleting my Chansey now with the app always open... And apparently those Chansey's my family all caught (my son got 2) are pretty damn rare. Funny, because there are plenty of other Pokémon I've never even seen in the nearby (like Seel for one).
Yea looks like a lot of people were getting refunds via Google Play or Apple
What are people asking for refunds for, exactly? The step thing has been broken for ages. Pokevision was only a temporary third-party thing. Yeah, sure, we used it and it was great, but I never expected it to last.
I was actually just about to drop some real money on this game for the first time. I finally made my first purchase using coins I got from taking over gyms. I bought a 50 slot expansion to my item box. But I think I will probably throw a few bucks into my account and my 2 kids accounts so we can all increase storage even more. In the long run that would save me time and gas money from having to make Pokeball runs through downtown whenever someone runs out.
TLR version of my travel/land type discussion: green are common where I live (farmland/grassland place), blue near freshwater lakes, yellow are common in Arizona, red are not anywhere in existence or at least super-rare (far more than Chansey) as far as I'm concerned.
So, back to the travel. We live in a semi-rural area where of course we get the usual
Rattattas, Zubats, and Pidgeys. We also get
Weedles and
Caterpies all the time. And the following are pretty common too:
Venonat, Oddish, Ekans, Exeggcute, Eevee, Spearow, Paras, Krabby, the
two rabbits, and
Bellsprout. To a lesser degree we see
Horsea, Staryu, Scyther, Pinsir, Jigglypuff, Bulbasaur, Goldeen, Doduo, Gastly, Meowth, Polliwag, Rhyhorn. In our neighborhood I got a Snorlax the first few days I was playing and haven't seen one since. And my son got a Chansey at our actual house. I've seen a few others rarely like
Tauros, Squirtle, Pikachu, Ponyta, Magicarp, Koffing, Psyduck.
We spent the last week in Arizona, and I was surprised at how different the spawns are there. I thought the game only differentiated between water and non-water. A nearby town has a lake and there we get all kinds of stuff we never or rarely see at home: lots of
Psyducks, Goldeen, and
Magikarps, occasional
Dratini.
But in Arizona (both Phoenix and Tucson seemed the same) we saw TONS of
Growlithe. I only ever got one of those in 3+ weeks at home. They also have lots of
Geodudes (only seen a few here),
Vulpix (again, just one here in weeks),
Abra and Kadabra (I see them occasionally here but they are much more common in AZ),
Sandshews, Cubone, Ponyta, Mankey, Diglets, and it seemed like
Meowth was way more common. We also caught a few
Clefairy which eluded us back home (thought we did see some on the radar).
On the other hand, even some of the super commons here like Caterpie and even Weedles were hard to come by in Arizona. We also never saw any Staryu, Scyther, Bellsprouts, Magikarps, Polliwag, and Psyducks. And Eevees, Exeggcutes, and Oddish were pretty rare there.
I've been reading a lot of Reddit threads on this game and I see very little discussion of regional Pokémon like that. It all seems to be water vs. non-water. But I find it interesting that they seem to account for different land-cover types as well. Where I live it is grassland/farmland so we get a lot of grass types with some fresh water types mixed in. In Arizona it seems to be mostly fire/ground/rock types.
And there are some Pokémon that other people claim are common that I have
NEVER seen, not even on Pokevision or the radar:
Magnemite, Seel, Grimer, Shellder, Hitmonlee, Hitmonchan, Lickitung, Jynx, Electabuzz, Magmar, Lapras, Ditto, Porygom, Omanyte, Kabuto, and Aerodactyl. I left off the non-U.S. country-specific ones Kangaskhan, Farfetch'd, and Mr. Mime and legendaries like Articuno, Zapdos, Moltres, and Mewtwo.
And only rarely have we seen these (mostly just on radar):
Charmander, Machop (and we have 2 evolutions of this to grind for - impossible!),
Tentacool (though interestingly enough I did catch a Tentacruel!),
Slowpoke, Onix (seen one),
Drowzee, Voltorb.
I guess several of these are seen commonly near oceans - but being landlocked that doesn't help us
. Well, we are actually only about 2 hours from the ocean. Maybe a beach trip is in order before summer ends!