With a newly revamped interface, the big player in the location based social app arena Foursquare just got a bit more social on webOS. One competitor, Gowalla, does not do a whole lot better in that respect – but Streetbrew puts the social aspect front and center. This latest update to Foursquare attempts to do the same and does an admirable job.
The location-based social check-in party is getting to be a bit crowded, but the new guy just walked in with some new kinds of brew and wants to be the life of the party. Newcomer Streetbrew offers location based gaming, chat, news and event announcements, and even cash rewards for creating locations.
Streetbrew does all the same things the popular location-based social check-in apps do (let’s just call them LBC apps to save on the tongue tie factor). Of course you check-in where you are and your friends can be notified in case they want to join you. You can push those check-ins along with comments out to Twitter and Facebook. You can upload pictures at locations. You can claim territories and battle for turf on teams similar to another popular LBC app (*cough*foursquare*cough*). You can get notifications in your dashboard when your friends check-in. That’s all old-hat in the new game of location-based social networking. Going beyond these standard features is where Streetbrew shines.
You know and love @MrKal_El on Twitter, now know and love him here as he gives us a rundown of restaurant apps on webOS!
Who doesn’t like going out to restaurants? But we can all use some help finding where to go and what’s good, especially when traveling. For those who know me on Twitter: I love food and travel. One of my favorite things to do involves going out to try new and exciting restaurants. As a launch day webOS user, some of the first apps I downloaded dealt with finding great new places to go to. After the break I’ll walk you guys through the apps I typically use on my webOS device to help me accomplish this. This guide is great for local use or when traveling. Hopefully it will help any foodie or casual diner out there find interesting and unique eats.
When webOS 2.0 comes around, Foursquare app developer Geoff Gauchet (a.k.a. Zhephree) is going to be ready with version 2.0 of his popular check-in app. As announced on his blog, Gauchet plans to hook into every webOS 2.0 feature announced thus far. You’ll be able to find places near you and submit shoutouts directly from Just Type, as well as unspecified interactions via the opened-up Synergy and new Exhibition mode.
Patching it up to work with webOS 2.0 isn’t the only thing Gauchet plans to do with Foursquare 2.0. In the cards is a massive rewrite of Foursquare’s core code, fully integrating many of the new features that have been implemented since the first release. This will serve to do a few things, most notably make it easier for future additions with less extraneous code lying around and make the app all-around faster than before. Less code means the phone needs to do less thinking. Foursquare for webOS will also be moving to an OAuth log-in scheme, just like Twitter and associated apps and services did earlier this year. Oh, and there’s the matter of switching to the not-yet-released-but-sure-to-pack-lots-of-newness API from the folks at Foursquare HQ. Even with all this, the developer is finding the time for a few new tools and features that will be sure to delight Foursquare users.
Source: Zhephree.com
Not long ago, we mentioned how much we’d like to see something like Chrome-to-Phone come to webOS. It’s essentially a service that allows you to send data from your web browser to an Android phone instantly and easily. We noticed (honest!) that FourSquare Developer Zhephree made a very curious comment on that very post and when he teased a new app on the PalmCast we held our tongues.
Well, that app is here and it’s called Neato! (with the exclamation point). The app cleverly works by providing you with a unique URL that you can then visit from any browser to get a bookmarklet. That bookmarklet will allow you to send text from the browser to your phone via PubSubHubBub instantly. It will read (and open) Google Maps and YouTube links or let you send arbitrary highlighted text so you can copy it to your clipboard. Phone number support is coming soon.
Zhephree looks to to charge a very reasonable price of $1.43 for the app – primarily to cover server costs. The app has been submitted to Palm – we’ll have our pennies saved up for when it arrives.
Source: Zhephree.com; Thanks Beerad!
It’s happened again folks, another Metrix developer log sighting of the infamous webOS 2.0-running Roadrunner, this time packing an “HD” suffix. What, pray tell, does HD mean in this case? It means an iPhone 4-matching 640×960 resolution, or at least that’s what was reported back to the logs.
This time the developer was Killin’ It, and the app was the relatively popular game Cloud Hopper, As before, it’s entirely possible that somebody has performed some malevolent trickery to make this happen, but unlike the Roadrunner spotting in Foursquare’s Metrix logs, this one wouldn’t be quite so easy. Cloud Hopper’s source code has not been made publicly available like Foursquare’s, which means any charlatan attempting to pull the digital wool over our eyes would likely have to perform some pretty tricky modifications to the webOS emulator to get it to spit out Roadrunner HD as the device, webOS 2.0 as the OS, and the heretofore unseen 640×960 as the display resolution.
Check out the charts for yourself after the break, with the usual caveat of "we can’t verify this for ourselves, so take a healthy dosing of salt alongside."
Source: Killin’ It LLC on Twitter
Fair warning: file this one under "Crazy rumors we can’t be sure will pan out but feel the need to share."
webOS developer Zhephree is an awesome dude and has created an awesome app with Foursquare. He’s also keen enough to check the app’s logs on webOSroundup’s Metrix, presumably to see how many users had upgraded to webOS 1.4.5 (a good portion so far, it would seem). But that’s not what stood out to him. What stands out is an entry for the until now unheard of “Roadrunner” device and a spot for webOS 2.0 in the operating system charts.
Now we’ll be the first to admit that this is the first we’ve heard of any device called Roadrunner, though with webOS 2.0 (or 1.5 or whatever) set for release by the end of the year, and presumably new hardware in tow as well, we wouldn’t at all be surprised to find that the OS and/or hardware are being tested right now. And testing popular apps on that OS and/or hardware? Also not a surprising development. In fact, we’ve seen in the past new iPhone and iPod Touch hardware first outed by similar logs from iOS developers.
There’s not a whole lot more we can read from this, though it is worth noting that Zhephree’s logs did not show any new resolutions, just the 320×480 from the Pre and 320×400 of the Pixi. We do hope that any new webOS device will come with a higher screen resolution than what we have now, and there’s something at the back of our mind screaming “640×960 Retina display!”, which could very well report itself as 320×480 without diminishing the testing experience. We’re getting into pretty dangerous speculation area here, so we’ll stop while we’re ahead.
Of course, we should note that this is the sort of thing that’s possible to fake. It wouldn’t be easy, as Zhephree notes, but it could be done by somebody deliberately hacking the emulator, changing some fairly-deep settings on a device, or even modifying the openly-available code of the Foursquare app. In his own words:
Plus, the source for foursquare is open and on GitHub. Someone with the knowledge could easily download the source, modify the Metrix JS library I have included, and force it to post to my Metrix stats with whatever string they want. Granted, it would take some effort, but it’s doable.
Then our only question would be the same one we keep asking of the developers submitting fake Flash apps to the Palm beta feeds: “Why?” So other developer type people: check your logs – is there a Roadrunner waiting there for you?
Source: Zhephree on Twitter; Thanks to everybody that sent this in!
Geoff Gauchet, aka Zhephree, is not only the developer of the Foursquare app for webOS, he’s now happily engaged to be married. What makes this a PreCentral story is how he proposed to his now-fiancee Rhea: via Foursquare on webOS. According to Geoff’s blog, he had been planning the proposal for awhile, but wanted to give it a special “non-traditional, nerdy” twist. Knowing how addicted Rhea is as well to Foursquare, Geoff worked with Naveen and Harry at Foursquare to create a special tip for the Natchez Steamboat on the Mississippi River, which the couple was planning on visiting, and to trigger the tip just before they arrived at the venue. With Geoff on his Pre, and Rhea on her Pixi, they got to the ship, he casually reminded her to check-in, and by the time she looked up from her screen, he was ready with the ring.
Congratulations to Geoff and Rhea, and may they have many more years of happy check-ins together!
Source: Geoff’s blog, via Palm’s @Adora
Check out more pics below the break.
Palm’s beta feed is chock-full of goodness — the excellent BFG Maps is one such example — and one of the latest finds comes way of a previous PC Brain Trust article where we asked you what your favorite social media applications were. Zipsquare is beautifully styled, dead simple, and fast; the first scene you see after launching the application is a list of nearby venues, that when clicked on, give you a modal drop-down menu allowing you to check-in, ping Facebook and Twitter, and add a customized message. There’s a "+" that resides in the bottom left of the screen that allows you quickly add a venue and a "friends" tab that doesn’t offer any functionality just yet.
I wouldn’t say that Zipsquare is a replacement for Zhephree’s excellent Foursqare (now at version 1.5) currently available in the App Catalog, as its missing a good deal of features in comparison. Rather, it’s a great companion for when you want to quickly hop in, check in to a venue, and hop out. Head on after the break to see a video of Zipsquare in action!
Zhephree has pushed out version 1.5 of his built-from-scratch Foursquare app, and it’s looking good. Literally, the update has brought a visual refresh to the app that brings the pretty and the clean. Additionally, there are a number of bug fixes in the update and a revamped navigation menu to help you with your checking-in around the world.
Speaking of checking-in, Foursquare recently passed one hundred million check-ins. The location-based social network has been growing by leaps and bounds, with check-ins coming now at a million a day.
Source: Palm App Catalog and Twitter