"Results from the Silph Road's quick glance through the new APK [v0.55.0]"

#PokemonGO: Hey travelers,I'm afraid I'm falling asleep at the keyboard, so this one'll have to be short and simple!This APK update came sooner than expected, but didn't bring anything too crazy. There were a few good concrete fixes and improvements, and a few things that are a bit too ambiguous to confidently nail down, but we'll do our best to share our analysis anyway:Concrete:Possible RAM OptimizationsWe're seeing a number of updates that appear to target more efficient memory usage/garbage collection (e.g. optimizing music and 'fog').Pokemon GO+ Device FixesNothing ambiguous this time, there's some new code for the GO+ device that aligns well with the patch notes. This should help a lot of travelers connect easier and re-connect easier.Ambiguous:Critical CatchAlong with the elemental badges that appear during wild Pokemon encounters, a new term has appeared called the critical catch. No other code appears to support this, so we don't believe this to be anything big - but something new is (or will soon be) going on with wild encounters. Keep an eye out for what this could mean!An Encounter Item?This could be nothing (as all these 'Ambiguous' findings could be this round) but something was either re-written or added in regards to wild encounter items. It may be as simple as a backend restructure of the screen where you select a berry/ball, or it may hint to future additional functionality in wild encounters.New Item Type: Candy AwardThe code has seen (and we've all used) item types that boost XP (lucky eggs) and item types called 'inventory upgrade' - and most recently we've seen an 'evolution requirement' item appear.This time, however, a new item type has appeared called 'candy award.'This leads us to believe a whole new class of items may be on the way that award (not boost) candy for something, perhaps relating to buddy achievements.... Exciting stuff either way!Unown BadgeA new badge has appeared in the code! This time just for Unown - which makes a ton of sense, if you ask us, as there's a ton of them!More Weird Sponsor TypesThis time, we got:STEAMERHOODSLOWCOOKERMIXERYour guess is as good as ours, travelers.Well, laptop battery's dying, travelers, and I've got to be up in 4 hours. Hope this helps illuminate what might be on deck in coming weeks.Can't wait to start seeing these things appear! (And can't wait to get my GO+ working again!)Travel safe,- Executive Dronpes -p.s. Didn't have enough battery to examine the image assets - we'll take a look tomorrow, but I'm sure they'll be posted by others if anything awesome shows up. :) via /r/TheSilphRoad http://ift.tt/2jDViZK