TalkAndroid App Review: Foursquare for Android

One of the most used apps on my Android device is Foursquare. Foursquare is a social networking tool that allows one to ‘check in’ to various restaurants, bars, and other hotspots around their city. Check-ins give you points based on how many times you’ve been to a given place. You can also earn badges, which are cool little icons that are displayed on your Foursquare profile denoting what you did to earn the badge.

I’ll be reviewing the Foursquare for Android app based on its UI and functions, as well as provide a pros/cons list to wrap it all up.

Stay tuned!

User Interface

The user interface of Foursquare is simple and functional enough. As you can see from the above screenshots, there are 5 tabs at the top of the app to view Friends, Places, Tips, To-Do, and your own profile. In the Places tab, you can view nearby places to check in to based on GPS location. One gripe I do have about the Places section is that there is no obvious way to search for places from the screen. In order to do so, you must hit the dedicated search key on your Android device. There is also a widget that you can place on your device’s homescreen to see friends’ check ins or places nearby.

Checking In

And now onto the fun part; checking in! To check in to the place you’re currently at, hit search and type in the name of the venue. A list should come up and if your venue isn’t there, you can add it to the Foursquare venue database and get extra points! In the above screenshots, I’ve checked in to TCU, the university I attend. You can add a ’shout’ as well as a picture of the venue if you wish. Another cool feature that I really enjoy is Facebook and Twitter integration. For each check in, you can choose whether or not you’d like to share it with Facebook and Twitter. However, the accounts must be set up on the Foursquare website from a computer.

Fun Factor

As I said before, Foursquare is one of the most used apps on my device for the simple fact that it’s fun! Foursquare rewards those for going out and exploring their respective cities with badges and points. This may seem silly to some, but it’s pretty fun to see stats about your travels and badges that you’ve earned. Some badges of I’ve earned above include Fresh Brew, which I unlocked for visiting a coffee shop 30 times. As a college student, I easily unlocked the Bookworm badge by going to various bookstores and libraries. One can also view the weekly leaderboard from the Foursquare app and, of course, yours truly has the #1 spot!

Betcha didn’t see this one coming; Foursquare can save you money! That’s right, you can get discounts at participating places that you check in to. Venues that are having discounts for checking in with Foursquare are marked by an orange SPECIAL tag. To unlock the discount, simply checkin to the venue and show the unlocked special to an employee. Shown above, the Bath and Body Works down the street is allowing Foursquare users to receive 75% off special items! Other offers I’ve redeemed with Foursquare included 20% off my entire purchase at RadioShack and a free order of chips and salsa at Chile’s.

Recap

Pros
-Simple, easy to use UI
-Rarely freezes, no major bugs
-Good integration with Facebook and Twitter

Cons
-Places section does not have an obvious input method for searching for venues

Overall, I love using the Foursquare app whenever I’m enjoying a night on the town. It’s an easy to use app and it really is addicting and fun once you get into it.

Foursquare for Android is free in the Android Market. You can also grab Foursquare for Android from the TalkAndroid ApplyAndroid database or scan the QR code below. Thanks for reading and happy checking in!

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