As you know, Niantic occasionally releases new versions of Pokemon Go. In order for those changes to not be a buggy mess, developers and testers have to ensure the latest changes work on a whole bunch of devices, as well as various versions of Android and iOS.
Here's the catch: If Niantic continued to support every old device, the effort of developing for and testing would grow over time, as more and more devices are released. This would be a costly exercise and would slow down development time significantly. Furthermore, it's likely that the game would be unable to take full advantage of new hardware and software features, as they would need to cater to the lowest common baseline of the older devices.
So what actually happens is Niantic occasionally drops support for some older Android/iOS versions and devices. I can't say for sure, but this is likely based on a couple of factors:
- Old Devices that no longer have capable enough hardware (such as processor speed or enough RAM) to run the game in a playable fashion. If your device can barely run Pokemon Go, is very laggy or occasionally crashes, chances are it will fall out of support fairly soon.
- Problematic devices with low user numbers. If Android 4 is causing a whole lot of issues but 99.9% of their player base is running Android 5+, why would they continue to support Android 4?
- Incompatible hardware deemed 'too problematic' to fix, at least for the time being. A relevant example: when the game first released, phones based on Intel hardware were not supported.
What doesn't Niantic support?
As of July 2019, Niantic has ceased support for:
- Android v4 (KitKat) - Twitter Announcement, Support Article
- Apple devices running iOS 9 - Support Article
- Apple Watch - Support Article
The currently supported technical specifications (as of March 2024) are as follows:
Android
- Android 8 or above
- Preferred resolution of 720 x 1280 pixels (Not optimized for tablet)
- Strong internet connection (Wi-Fi or 5G)
- GPS and Location Services
- Rooted devices are not supported
- 2GB+ of RAM
iOS
- iPhone 6s or above
- iOS 14 or above
- Strong internet connection (Wi-Fi or 5G)
- GPS and Location Services
- Jailbroken devices are not supported
- 2GB+ of RAM
See Niantic's 'Supported Devices' Page for more information.
What does this mean for your device?
Assuming your Huawei G7 is the Ascend G7 - Android version 4.4.4 is no longer supported by Pokemon Go. However, all is not lost: you might be able to upgrade your system version to Android 6 and get it to work. I would still recommend looking into getting a more modern device if possible, as it is likely not long until that phone falls completely out of support.
