Foursquare for Android gets a major facelift, adds Tips and To-Do

October 1, 2010 | Content by Andrew Kameka

Lifestyle, Travel

Foursquare’s Android app has often been criticized by users who want something closer to what’s available on that other platform. Those naysayers can finally pipe down because Foursquare has released a major update to its Android app.

The new Foursquare has a more visually-appealing interface that looks smoother and less clunky. It has also added “Tips” and “To-Do” to the main navigation tabs. That will provide quick tips from friends and strangers when visiting a location, or allow users to check their To-Do of places they’d like to visit in a given area.

I’m very pleased with the improvements because the Foursquare app wasn’t the greatest to use. I have always preferred Gowalla because their Android app performed so much better (for me at least) but the small portions of my friends who bother with location-based check-in apps have opted for Foursquare. Good to see the company is continuing to improve the Android experience.

Other new features include:

• Friend information added to venue page
• Access friend requests from Me tab
• Refresh the Me tab
• Switched from xml to json for API calls

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Facebook For Android Just Got A Big Upgrade, Is Catching Up To Its iPhone Cousin

Source: TechCrunch

The honeymoon period with my Droid has worn off, and I still love it. But it’s far from perfect. One of the biggest gripes I’ve had has been with app support. In particular, the native Facebook app — by far one of my most commonly used apps and one that actually came preinstalled on the phone — has sort of sucked until now. Yes, you could read your News Feed, but many of the app’s functions actually kicked you into a separate browser window and weren’t done in the native app. Today, that changes.

A new version of Facebook for Android is now live on Android Market, and it’s a big improvement. I’m still playing around with it to find the various changes, but the app’s description points out two big ones: you can browse your friend’s profiles and photo albums natively. Given how core both of those features are to the Facebook experience, it’s surprising that they weren’t there to begin with. Suffice to say, this is a big leap forward for the app, and users are already expressing their delight on Twitter and the Market’s integrated reviews.

Making these features native has a number of benefits. It’s now easier to share photos, and you can zoom and leave comments on them. And because you’re no longer browsing your friend’s profiles from the browser, everything is much faster.

That said, there are still a number of key features missing. For one, you can’t access your Inbox to send or receive messages. And there isn’t support for Events, either (that one took over year until it was finally included in the latest Facebook for iPhone update).

Source: TechCrunch

GigaDroid.com

Have a WordPress blog and wishing you could update it on the go?  Now you can with wpToGo for Android.

The login screen lets you create multi-access for any of your WordPress blogs.  Just enter your login username and password along with the URL path for your blog.

The application loads your current postings and allows you to add new postings right from this Android app.  Tap On My Blog to view a list of your post.  Refresh your post or tap the plus symbol on the left to add a new post.

You can set-up notifications for new comments with a tap of the menu key and notification settings.  Settings for image size can be adjustment from the menu.  Not a bad application but I couldn’t retrieve drafts I had created from other applications or online.  I also couldn’t figure out how to clear the draft I had created with the app after it had been published.

GigaDroid Rating:  
3 out of 5 Androids

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