It’s been more than 20 days since the last big update (0.61.0) was released for Pokémon GO, on April 7. Usually, Niantic releases an update every two weeks, alternating between an app update and a nest migration in between.

As we observed earlier with the 0.53.0 update, the longer it takes for them to release an update, the bigger the update we gets! If you don’t remember, the 0.53 update was one of the biggest updates for Pokémon GO, wrapping up preparations for the release of Generation 2. Coincidentally, it also took more than 20 days to release.

With that in mind, we’re sharing our expectations (and hopes) for the 0.63.0 update. Please bear in mind that these are our expectations which are not confirmed by Niantic in any way! They are simply product of the following:

One of the biggest expectations we have is the inclusion of client side Code required for the release of the upcoming gym rework.

Hanke went all out earlier and confirmed that “all new cooperative social gameplay experiences” are coming this Spring. With May coming in a few days, we expect the new 0.63.0 APK to contain a lot, if not all, of the required code base for that.

There is always a possibility that Niantic will miss their earlier estimates and deliver this feature a bit later, but we’re quite confident that this release will include the fabled gym rework.

Our next expectation is that the 0.63.0 update will reveal that gym raids are actually the gym rework in question!

The existence of gym raids has leaked earlier in the client app’s network traffic, and as far as we know, at the time of the leak they were available for “dog food testing” purposes. Dog food testing is a principle of software testing where only developers test an upcoming feature, or as the popular terminology says, they “eat their own dog food”.

"gym_removal_notification_toast" "{0} has fought hard and returned!" 

"{0} は "pokemon_hungry_notification_toast" "{0} is hungry!" "{0} はお腹が空いている"

"pokemon_lost_notification_toast" "{0} lost a battle!" "{0} は負けてしまった"

"pokemon_won_notification_toast" "{0} defended the Gym!" "{0} はジムを守った！" 

"nearby_raid_notification_toast" "Nearby raid starting soon!" 

"近くのジムでバ "gym_removal_notification_toast|1" 

"{0} is back after a hard battle!" "{0} が 

"gym_removal_notification_toast|2" 

"{0} was forced off the Gym!" 

"{0} がジムか "pokemon_hungry_notification_toast|1" 

"{0} needs a pick-me-up!" "{0} のお腹が 

"pokemon_hungry_notification_toast|2" 

"{0} wants a berry!" 

"{0} はきのみを欲 "pokemon_lost_notification_toast|1" 

"{0} was defeated in battle!" "{0} は負けて 

"pokemon_lost_notification_toast|2" 

"{0} fainted at the Gym!" "{0} はひんしになっ 

"pokemon_won_notification_toast|1" 

"{0} was victorious in battle!" 

"{0} はバトル "pokemon_won_notification_toast|2" 

"{0} has triumphed over your opponents!"

"nearby_raid_notification_toast|1" "There's a raid about to start near you!"

"nearby_raid_notification_toast|2" "A raid's going to start nearby!" "近くでバ

We also expect to find out more about the redeemable codes feature that is already in the code base, but has not yet been activated.

Redeemable codes are a common feature in almost all of the long running Pokémon games, so their addition to Pokémon GO will come as no surprise.

We expect to see a bit of new code added to the APK to support this feature, although we do not expect it too launch before summer.

Lastly, we expect the update to be released sometimes next week. In software development, a dev sprint, which is typical agile development cycle, lasts two weeks.

A well established practice is to take two sprints to deliver one complex new feature and several small fixes for existing features.

We expect that we’ll be seeing the update announcement soon and that data mining will confirm our previous expectations.