Feature requests: WebOS Foursquare app

[stimpco]

I've noticed that when adding a venue (or editing) if you click on "category" you lose previous edits... Can this be fixed?

[Zhephree]

Originally Posted by stimpco

I've noticed that when adding a venue (or editing) if you click on "category" you lose previous edits... Can this be fixed?

Are you using the latest version, v1.1.8? This bug was fixed a few versions ago. At least, it should have been.

[dvdmon]

what I'd love to be able to see when I check in or just look up a venue is a list of people who've checked in, how many times, and when. Or at least the top 10 in number of checkins and 10 most recent checkins. Also, unless you are a mayor of some place there doesn't seem to be a way to see how many times You have checked in! Basically, if one of the key things that you're supposed to be striving for on Foursquare is mayorships, there's no way to gauge how close you are to getting one or for that matter having one stripped from you.

It would also be cool in that same vein to have a listing of potential badges and how close you are to getting each.

Finally, I would love it if there were more control around notifications - let me pick which friends to get notified of. Also, please provide the option to be notified of checkins not just in the local vicinity.

thanks and can't wait for the update!

[Zhephree]

Originally Posted by dvdmon

what I'd love to be able to see when I check in or just look up a venue is a list of people who've checked in, how many times, and when. Or at least the top 10 in number of checkins and 10 most recent checkins. Also, unless you are a mayor of some place there doesn't seem to be a way to see how many times You have checked in! Basically, if one of the key things that you're supposed to be striving for on Foursquare is mayorships, there's no way to gauge how close you are to getting one or for that matter having one stripped from you.

Unfortunately, the foursquare API doesn't currently expose data like that. If it did, I would be displaying it already. The only way to calculate mayorships is to do resource intensive parsing through your history, like whenwillibemayor.com does. The phone would be painfully slow, and possibly hit rate limits since you're using the app for more than just that.

Originally Posted by dvdmon

It would also be cool in that same vein to have a listing of potential badges and how close you are to getting each.

There isn't an official list of all the available badges and they've been adding new ones pretty quickly. Personally, I like not knowing. But that aside, the iPhone app lists a few potential badges, but it's only like 1/3 of all possible badges. Enumerating all possible badges isn't possible with the API as of right now.

Originally Posted by dvdmon

Finally, I would love it if there were more control around notifications - let me pick which friends to get notified of. Also, please provide the option to be notified of checkins not just in the local vicinity.

thanks and can't wait for the update!

You can already decide which friends to get pings from. Visit that user's profile (by clicking on their name in the check-ins feed, or viewing your friends list in your profile) and there is an option that lets you turn pings on or off for that user. You can also go to your friends list on the forusquare website and uncheck boxes next to the users you don't want pings from.

As for proximity, that's by design. The BlackBerry, iPhone, and Android apps don't display far away user's pings. Right now, that's how foursquare tells me which users to show a ping from. I'd have to do a lot of calculating on my own, resulting in more API calls to show non-close-by friends.

The idea behind pings (and foursquare in general) is to give you the opportunity to meet up with your friends when you see they've checked-in nearby. If you're in California and your friend is in Florida, seeing them check-in to the gas station isn't very useful, especially since you can view all your friends' check-ins in the app itself.

Thanks for your input!

[dvdmon]

Thanks for the detailed response!

Thought of a few more but they also are probably iimpossible/inpractical with the current API: be notified when someone checks into a cenue you're a mayor of? Or mark a venue for 'watching' or even be notified of checkins for venues that are nearby (as in within a mile or a fe miles).

[Zhephree]

Originally Posted by dvdmon

Thanks for the detailed response!

Thought of a few more but they also are probably iimpossible/inpractical with the current API: be notified when someone checks into a cenue you're a mayor of? Or mark a venue for 'watching' or even be notified of checkins for venues that are nearby (as in within a mile or a fe miles).

Yeah, can't have it notify you of when someone checks into your mayorships with the API. I had considered having it monitor your mayorships and alert you when you were ousted from one, however, foursquare asked me not to include that for fear of it enticing cheating. Granted, that was before their anti-cheating methods, but still.

As for check-ins nearby, the easiest way is to do that manually by opening the app and looking at the list of venues. it'll show you the number of people checked-in to that venue and if any of them have 5+ people checked-in ata time, they get shot to the top of the list under the "Trending Now" heading

[djfarout]

Originally Posted by Zhephree

Yeah, can't have it notify you of when someone checks into your mayorships with the API. I had considered having it monitor your mayorships and alert you when you were ousted from one, however, foursquare asked me not to include that for fear of it enticing cheating. Granted, that was before their anti-cheating methods, but still.

As for check-ins nearby, the easiest way is to do that manually by opening the app and looking at the list of venues. it'll show you the number of people checked-in to that venue and if any of them have 5+ people checked-in ata time, they get shot to the top of the list under the "Trending Now" heading

How about limiting notifications to people within a certain distance from you? or your last checkin? The draw back would be the GPS would have to constantly get your location, which could drain the battery??
Right now, I only turn my notifications on at night when I'm out. Otherwise I get way too many of them.

[RyanLZ227]

Just a few suggestions (sent from my Palm Pre): Collapsable tips/to-dos per venue that expand when the venue is tapped. Venue suggestions (ie "I'm looking for Chinese food...", the App would suggest nearby Chinese food. To be able to have the map centered on a location instead of the (often inaccurate) GPS location. When checking-in, have a message pop-up that says if a friend is nearby.

[mrkalel]

@Zhephree I would love that @Foursquare for @Palm #webOS to say it's posted from a Palm device instead of just 'Foursquare' ala Facebook App
Also can we get Sub-category picks when creating new Venues?

[alvaro_qc]

What about adding new venues using google to get their information? I'm not sure how it works but check out zipsquare app in the Beta Catalog and you'll see what I'm talking about. (By the way, zipsquare app locates me faster than foursquare app).

[Zhephree]

Originally Posted by alvaro_qc

What about adding new venues using google to get their information? I'm not sure how it works but check out zipsquare app in the Beta Catalog and you'll see what I'm talking about. (By the way, zipsquare app locates me faster than foursquare app).

Already been planned for a while.

And not tot ake away from what RMXDave has done with Zipsquare, but it never works fro me. Always throws an missing geolat attribute error and when it does work, takes over a minute.

Conversely, my app locates me in approx. 5 seconds nearly every time.

It's an interesting anomaly to look into

[Zhephree]

Originally Posted by mrkalel

@Zhephree I would love that @Foursquare for @Palm #webOS to say it's posted from a Palm device instead of just 'Foursquare' ala Facebook App
Also can we get Sub-category picks when creating new Venues?

Unfortunately, the app doesn't directly post to Twitter. When you check-in or shout, it tells the foursquare servers that you want to check-in. Depending on your settings, the foursquare servers record your check-in and then their servers post it to twitter and/or facebook.

This is why you don't need to authorize the foursquare app for Facebook or Twitter.

What do you mean by subcategory picks? You can select sub categories already, some even have sub-subcategories.

[Zhephree]

Originally Posted by RyanLZ227

Just a few suggestions (sent from my Palm Pre): Collapsable tips/to-dos per venue that expand when the venue is tapped. Venue suggestions (ie "I'm looking for Chinese food...", the App would suggest nearby Chinese food. To be able to have the map centered on a location instead of the (often inaccurate) GPS location. When checking-in, have a message pop-up that says if a friend is nearby.

Can you clarify you collapsible tips per venue idea? The tips and to-dos per venue are already on each venue's page.

I'm already working on a recommendation system based on your check-in history and what's near you, but I'm waiting on the next version of the Foursquare API to be released because the current method makes at least 50 calls to the foursquare servers, which is very slow and could get the app rate limited.

Friend nearby isn't a terrible idea. I'll look into that.

[alvaro_qc]

Originally Posted by Zhephree

Already been planned for a while.

And not tot ake away from what RMXDave has done with Zipsquare, but it never works fro me. Always throws an missing geolat attribute error and when it does work, takes over a minute.

Conversely, my app locates me in approx. 5 seconds nearly every time.

It's an interesting anomaly to look into

I just found the reason of the problem. I usually have my Pre in spanish but I just changed the language to english and I for my surprise the GPS was working faster! Not only on foursquare but also in all the apps that require GPS. This looks more like an OS bug rather than an app bug.

[sbrad425]

Stupid question, how do you long into the thing?

[mrkalel]

Originally Posted by Zhephree

Unfortunately, the app doesn't directly post to Twitter. When you check-in or shout, it tells the foursquare servers that you want to check-in. Depending on your settings, the foursquare servers record your check-in and then their servers post it to twitter and/or facebook.

This is why you don't need to authorize the foursquare app for Facebook or Twitter.

What do you mean by subcategory picks? You can select sub categories already, some even have sub-subcategories.

Well I meant that on the full site it allows for subs, tags etc... but I see on the App I can only choose the main cat. for the venues...

[Zhephree]

Originally Posted by sbrad425

Stupid question, how do you long into the thing?

Sign up for an account using the button on the start-up screen of the app, or visit foursquare.com on your computer. Use either your email address or phone number as your username and log in from there.

Originally Posted by mrkalel

Well I meant that on the full site it allows for subs, tags etc... but I see on the App I can only choose the main cat. for the venues...

There was a little bug where some subcategories wouldn't work. Are you still having this problem?

[alvaro_qc]

Another suggestion, there is people (I'm included) that use really often the "add a new venue" button and is kind of annoying to scroll down to the bottom of the page to add a new venue. I suggest that you should remove the search button, replace it with the map view and add the add a new venue where the map view currently is. Or another simple solution for this problem is to add a new gesture: If you scroll down the page and press the gesture area at the same time, you could be moved to the bottom of the page and vice-versa.

[j_grouchy]

Originally Posted by alvaro_qc

Another suggestion, there is people (I'm included) that use really often the "add a new venue" button and is kind of annoying to scroll down to the bottom of the page to add a new venue. I suggest that you should remove the search button, replace it with the map view and add the add a new venue where the map view currently is. Or another simple solution for this problem is to add a new gesture: If you scroll down the page and press the gesture area at the same time, you could be moved to the bottom of the page and vice-versa.

How about just a plus sign button (+) at the bottom like (GASP! ) Gowalla has.

[alvaro_qc]

Yes, that is basically my suggestion, replace the current map button with an add a new venue (+), moving the map buttton to where the search button is.