⚠️ IMPORTANT DISCLAIMER — READ BEFORE USING

GPS spoofing in Pokémon GO violates Niantic's Terms of Service. Using this tool will likely result in a soft ban, strike, or permanent account ban. This project is shared as a proof of concept only for educational and accessibility research purposes. The author accepts no responsibility for any consequences to your Pokémon GO account. Use at your own risk, and consider using a secondary/throwaway account if you choose to experiment with this.

Additionally, as of mid-2024, Pokémon GO's anti-cheat system (Error 12 — "Failed to detect location") actively blocks the DVT-based GPS simulation method used by this tool. Pokémon GO spawns and PokéStops will not appear until this is resolved at the OS/app level. See Known Limitations for details.

What Is This?

PoGo Mover is a macOS web app that lets you control your Pokémon GO character's GPS location from your Mac while your iPhone is connected via USB. It was built as an accessibility tool for someone who became wheelchair-bound and could no longer physically walk to play the game.

It works by using Apple's DVT (Developer Tools) location simulation API via pymobiledevice3 — the same mechanism Xcode uses to simulate locations during app development. No jailbreak required.

Features

🗺️ Interactive map with Street and Satellite view (remembers your preference)
⌨️ WASD / arrow key movement for real-time walking control
🖱️ Click-to-move with waypoint queue — click multiple points to build a route
🚶 Speed presets — Walk, Jog, Bike, Drive (all remembered between sessions)
✨ Teleport mode with cooldown timer and distance-based wait recommendations
📍 Locate button — snap to your real-world GPS location
🔄 Persistent GPS lock — continuously re-sends position to prevent real GPS from overriding
💾 Remembers last position, zoom level, map layer, and speed between sessions
🌐 Runs locally — no internet required after initial map tile load, no data sent anywhere

How It Works

Mac (PoGo Mover web app)
        ↓  HTTP POST /move
Mac (server.py + location_daemon.py)
        ↓  pymobiledevice3 DVT API over USB tunnel
iPhone (iOS location service)
        ↓
Pokémon GO reads spoofed GPS

start.py automatically sets up the tunnel, checks Developer Mode, mounts disk images, and opens the browser
server.py serves the web app and receives coordinate updates
location_daemon.py holds a persistent DVT connection to the iPhone and streams location updates without gaps — preventing the real GPS from breaking through
The browser app sends position updates via HTTP to the local server

Requirements

Mac running macOS 12 or later
iPhone with iOS 15+ (tested on iOS 26)
USB cable (Lightning or USB-C)
Python 3.8+
Xcode (free, from Mac App Store) — needed once to enable Developer Mode on the iPhone
pymobiledevice3 (installed automatically by start.py)

Setup

1. Enable Developer Mode on iPhone (one time only)

Install Xcode from the Mac App Store (free, ~10GB)
Open Xcode → create or open any project
Go to Window → Devices and Simulators (this activates the iPhone connection)
On iPhone: Settings → Privacy & Security → scroll to bottom → Developer Mode → ON
iPhone restarts — swipe up and enter your passcode to confirm
You can uninstall Xcode after this if you need disk space back

2. Install PoGo Mover

git clone https://github.com/yourusername/pogo-mover.git
cd pogo-mover

Or just download and unzip the release.

3. Run

python3 start.py

That's it. start.py handles everything:

Installs pymobiledevice3 if missing
Detects your iPhone
Checks Developer Mode status (with guidance if it's off)
Starts the GPS tunnel (will ask for your sudo password once)
Mounts the developer disk image
Opens the web app in your browser at http://localhost:7777

Controls

Action	How
Move character	WASD or Arrow keys — hold to walk continuously
Add waypoint	Click on the map — adds to queue, player walks the route in order
Cancel route	Press any WASD key
Teleport	Enable Teleport Mode then click the map
Change speed	Click Walk / Jog / Bike / Drive presets or drag the slider
Snap to real location	Click the compass arrow button (bottom-left of map)
Switch map layer	Click Street / Satellite toggle (bottom-left of map)

Speed Reference

Mode	Speed	Notes
🚶 Walk	1.4 m/s	Safest — best for egg hatching
🏃 Jog	4 m/s	Still within normal range
🚲 Bike	11 m/s	Use carefully
🚗 Drive	28 m/s	May trigger speed detection

Teleport Cooldown Guide

After teleporting, keep Pokémon GO closed for the recommended time before reopening:

Distance	Wait
< 10 km	30 minutes
10–50 km	60 minutes
50–500 km	90 minutes
500+ km	120 minutes

Known Limitations

⚠️ Pokémon GO Error 12 — "Failed to detect location"

As of mid-2024, Niantic added detection specifically targeting DVT-based GPS simulation. When using PoGo Mover with Pokémon GO:

The player character does move on the map ✅
Pokémon will not spawn ❌
PokéStops will not appear ❌
Error 12 is displayed in-game ❌

This is a Niantic-side block, not a bug in PoGo Mover. Other apps and games that use the iPhone's GPS (Maps, Waze, Find My, location-based AR apps) work fine with PoGo Mover.

Tools that claim to bypass Error 12 (iAnyGo, PoGoSkill, PoGo Wizard) do so by installing a modified version of Pokémon GO — which carries a higher ban risk and is not something this project pursues.

Other Limitations

macOS only (the DVT tunnel requires macOS system tools)
Requires USB connection — Wi-Fi is not currently supported
The remote tunneld process requires sudo (Mac password) each session
If the tunnel drops, GPS reverts to real location until restarted

File Structure

pogo-mover/
├── start.py              # All-in-one launcher — run this
├── server.py             # Local HTTP server + GPS command relay
├── location_daemon.py    # Persistent DVT connection to iPhone
├── index.html            # Web app (map, controls, UI)
└── README.md             # This file

Technical Details

GPS Persistence

A key challenge was preventing the iPhone's real GPS from overriding the spoofed location. The solution is location_daemon.py — a persistent async Python process that holds the DVT LocationSimulation service connection open continuously, streaming the current target position. Because the connection never closes, iOS never gets a window to reassert the real GPS signal.

Tunnel Architecture (iOS 17+)

iOS 17 moved all developer services behind a RemoteXPC tunnel. start.py launches sudo pymobiledevice3 remote tunneld which:

Creates a VPN-like tunnel interface
Exposes a local HTTP API at 127.0.0.1:49151
server.py queries this API to get the live RSD (Remote Service Discovery) address and port
location_daemon.py connects to the DVT service through this RSD endpoint

GPS Jitter

Real iPhone GPS has ~2m of natural variance. PoGo Mover adds ±2m of random noise to every location update to simulate this, making the signal look more natural to apps that check GPS accuracy metadata.

Why This Was Built

This project started as an accessibility tool. The original use case: someone who loved Pokémon GO became wheelchair-bound and could no longer physically walk to play. The goal was to let them control their in-game movement from a Mac, using a keyboard or by clicking on a map.

The project evolved into a full-featured GPS controller with waypoint routing, teleport mode, speed presets, satellite view, and persistent location locking. Even though Pokémon GO's current anti-cheat prevents full gameplay, the underlying technique works reliably for any other app that uses iOS location services.

Contributing

PRs welcome. Areas where help would be appreciated:

Wi-Fi tunnel support — eliminating the USB requirement
Route import — loading GPX files as waypoint routes
Error 12 research — any findings on bypassing Niantic's DVT detection without modified apps
Windows/Linux support — pymobiledevice3 has partial support on other platforms

License

MIT — do whatever you want, but please keep the disclaimer.

Acknowledgements

Built on top of pymobiledevice3 by @doronz88 — an extraordinary piece of work that implements essentially the entire Apple device protocol stack in pure Python.

README.md Unescape Escape

PoGo Mover 🗺️