Pokemon GO, the mobile application that has taken the world by storm over the past week, has had two major issues. The first: battery life. The game absolutely robs your phone’s power at a quicker rate than pretty much every other application. It’s understandable, as the application relies upon your phone’s GPS, but it’s still a bother. The second: data.
Chasing the cute little creatures through the streets is incredibly fun, but given that it requires a constant internet connection, your data gets the rinse. It’s a big issue, but one that mobile carrier T-Mobile has decided to address by offering free data to Pokemon GO players.
Free Pokemon GO data for a year
The American carrier announced late last night that, as part of next week’s “T-Mobile Tuesday,” the carrier is thanking its customers with free, unlimited data for Pokemon GO for one year. This means that customers will be able to “catch ‘em all” without having it count against their monthly data plan.
“This is what T-Mobile is all about – thanking customers with hot, new, totally free gifts every week, and right now, nothing is hotter than Pokemon GO!” said John Legere, president and CEO of T-Mobile. “With the carriers’ shared data schemes, players could easily burn up the family’s data bucket – and then, hello overages!”
T-Mobile isn’t just giving away the free data willy-nilly, however. Any T-Mobile customer that wants to get in on the free data to traverse their town looking for that elusive Pikachu first needs to download the “T-Mobile Tuesdays” application. Then, on Tuesday, July 19, customers can claim the gift of free “Pokedata.” If one misses out this Tuesday, they can claim the offer in the app every Tuesday until August 9.
Other offers for Pokemon GO players
On top of free data for an entire year, the mobile carrier is offering free Lyft rides of up to $15 (to hit all those Pokestops), free Wendy’s Frostys (to keep cool in the hot summer sun), and 50% off powerpacks (to make sure you catch that Pikachu before your battery dies).
Pokemon GO, released just last week, has quickly become a full-blown cultural phenomenon, allowing people to wander through every major city looking at their smartphones to catch the virtual monsters projected onto the real world through their phone cameras.
