We want to inform you about a critical change affecting Android users: the Niantic Wayfarer App for Android will no longer be available as of November 4, 2024 at 10:30 am PT. Android users will be able to scan and contribute to Niantic Map in our new ‘Scaniverse for Developers’ on Android app starting November 11.
Why is the Wayfarer App for Android being deprecated?
To deliver an improved scanning experience, we’re transitioning to ‘Scaniverse for Developers’. While the Scaniverse iOS version was made available June 2024, the Android version is not ready yet. Unfortunately, due to an unforeseen change to the Android SDK requirement, support for the Android version of the Wayfarer App will lapse about one week before Scaniverse for Developers on Android will be ready. We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.
What does this mean for you?
Starting November 4, 2024 at 10:30 am PT, you will no longer be able to access the Wayfarer app on Android.
However, early access to Scaniverse for Developers on Android will be available starting November 11, 2024 at 9 am PT.
Scaniverse for Developers (already available on iOS) supports the same features present on Wayfarer app — allowing you to scan, browse the map, and add new locations.
What to Do Before November 11:
To browse the map, nominate locations, and request VPS activations: Use the Geospatial Browser (GSB) in your preferred desktop or mobile web browser.
To submit AR scans: During this lapse, developers will only be able to submit AR scans using ‘Scaniverse for Developers’ on iOS.
How do I get started with ‘Scaniverse for Developers’ on Android on November 11?
To ensure a smooth transition, all active developers on Wayfarer Android should have been auto-enrolled to an early-access version of Scaniverse for Developers on Android. If you find that you are unable to access the link, please sign-up here to receive an invitation upon availability.
Thank you for being a part of the Niantic developer community. We appreciate your patience and understanding as we work to deliver a better experience with Scaniverse. We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience this change may cause.
If you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to reach out to our support team.
Hi Lightship team,
I will refer to the requests I have personally made regarding the limitations of Scaniverse for Android on X
And as per the discussions on MFLA, I made it clear that Android users must have the same access to features the scaniverse for iOS has.
This also extends to the ability to activate VPS wayspots, which has been reported that even via the the web interface on Lightship, the activation process doesn’t work.
As the game we play, Ingress, uses a MFLA feature, it is imperative for the health of the game to thrawt any potential cheating.
Pokémon go and others do not use MFLA, and this has reflected in the absurd amount of the on going cheating that occurs. Heuristically punishing legitimate players.
Therefore requesting, please, that the wayfarer ability to request VPS activations continue until such time as the full deployment of the Scaniverse app, with the same features as iOS, is made available.
Also, as per the discussions on X, I understand that even the iOS version has significant processing times of SPLATs and hopefully this too will be addressed by November 11th
I was using the wayfarer app for 2 reasons, to activate the AR (has not been working for some time) and to check the map and see if it has wayspots that do not appear in the game with which I am making the submission (this is very useful since iitc just shows what’s in ingress and we still can’t see the nearby wayspots when we make a submission in ingress, like in pokemon go). Do you intend to make such a map accessible in another way? Because even Campfire does not offer a map of this quality, very useful which prevents submitting duplicates among others.
It seems like it does but when I uploaded the Test scans from android they didn’t appeared in the GSB like they should on a process state. Maybe it is because of Beta testing in android, instead on IOs device when I uploaded the Test scans they appeared in the GSB
The scaniverse for developers is not available, and it is currently the 13th of November here in NZ
Obviously, removing a very important tool over a week ago, to visually understand what wayspots need more scans, has been removed with the Wayfarer App depreciation, and the Scaniverse 4 for developers hasn’t been released on Android.
As for when you’re out playing Ingress at far off portals/wayspots, not being able to determine if the scans from Ingress are being processed in a timely manner, and to nominate those wayspots for VPS activation, is far from ideal. And not unhelpful.
Hey I have it working in NZ. Its in beta version so you have to enable it to the correct playstore account. If you have the old wayfarer app it has links to instructions on how to update to the new app.
I was having trouble at first as well, but in the end my playstore account just ended up being the wrong one signed in so it wasn’t showing the new beta version.
As a follow up with this,
I had switched accounts to the dev account to try and get the update, on several occasions yesterday morning.
After raising the issue to the Scaniverse X account and on here. The update came through.
There is an additional hurdle of requiring the Geospatial Browser QR code, to have dev mode enabled within the app.
This requires a desktop browser, or use desktop mode on mobile to get the QR code.
The standard Geospatial Browser in the Android version, has a substantial number of VPS activated wayspots, not visible. This is an issue for developers who are trying to use said VPS enabled locations for their upcoming projects, if they do not have dev mode enabled.
Tried several scans yesterday afternoon, quite surprised the app uses real-time point cloud generation as basic, as opposed to Volumetric Meshing (ingress does this)
Post processing does not always produce a viable mesh or SPLAT, that may be an inherited bug from the Wayfarer App that did the same thing.
I am using a S21 Ultra, Exynos 2100
Feel this is the lowest viable chipset of a flagship device for this new system.
Taking around 5 minutes to process, Regardless of filesizes.
More recent flagship chipsets should in my opinion reduce the process time to just a couple of minutes, for those where time is limited.
Thanks to the Scaniverse for the prompt resolution to access to the Scaniverse for Devs.