Foursquare:

In the First Round Foursquare looks like the application to beat on the iPhone but it’s far from perfect. Foursquare is relatively the new kid on the block and it’s received lots of praise from Mashable and TechCrunch with it’s ability to shape the game. Personally I hope foursquare does keep the pressure on this app community to squeeze features and functionality out, but first Foursquare has some improvements of it’s own to implement.

The Second Round some other check-in apps smackdown foursquare with it’s lack of photo support. Coming from one app that has this to another that doesn’t makes for an awkward check-in if you’re use to showing off latest coffee shop or an event photo. I can understand if this isn’t cost effective option for a new start up but with the right partnership, I’m sure they can implement a linked photo system like all the picture uploading sites that popped up for Twitter. Just doing this out in a separate app and coming back into Foursquare with a copied link is a hassle.

A small detail that I was surprised by is the e-mail links kick you out into the native mail app, which months ago other apps like I Can Has Cheezburger? had fixed so you can keep LOLing.

Twitter and Facebook integration is there to show you’re a check-in champ, my Facebook Connect however was very difficult to connect successfully. I’m sure it was a hick up but I had to revoke all permissions from both sites and reconnect.

I think my favorite feature of Foursquare is the “Nights Out” which I’m guessing is tallied after successive check-ins after dark. I give the application lots of kudos for a clean and crisp user interface and great color scheme. The badges that I have seen thus far are congruent in design and color palette, but overly simplified. When I got my first “Mayorship” posted to my wall on Facebook it looked like I had become king of FarmVille, and we can’t have that. I’d like to see the foursquare bouncing ball as a detail on the badges (This is a graphic designer’s review incase you hadn’t noticed).

I’m puzzled why on the first tab for “Friends” is where the Check-in button is located. I think “Activity” would describe the panel better. The “View Tweets Nearby” feature is great and I looks like they can add more of those location based services like Google Buzz and others in the future. The hardest part for me to participate in on the Foursquare App is the “Tips” and “My To Dos” the foursquare.com website makes this a front and center feature on your logged-in homepage; however to new users it’s a giant empty hole. If it knows my location maybe they can post the top completed “To-Dos” in a given radius to get you started or better yet some welcome tutorial for “Tips.” Overall I give Foursquare a “Win” hopefully in time they will become “Epic.”

Loopt

Like going to Las Vegas, NV and betting against a winning team, Loopt, Inc. has Looptstar as a Top Ten App in the Apple iTunes Store but it’s success has come at a price. That being said, just from looking at the preview images you can see the badges and surmise they are trying to capture Foursquare’s momentum. Seeing as I already have Foursquare I don’t need another similar app. I’ve yet to try Looptstar and have had the regular Loopt for sometime now but it seems like the application has been benched. Now call me crazy but you don’t bench your first prize fighter at the behest of your rookie, but I think that’s just what Loopt, Inc. did. In order for Loopt products to gain traction in the market they diversified for the App Store by splitting their apps into separate parts. I think it’s a failure for the original app however; the original Loopt is no longer competitive. Looptmix (or Loopt Mix, their naming system isn’t consistent) was spun off for location based chat and dating profiles. Looptstar, LooptStar, Loopt Star, again with the three versions on the branding… is the latest spin off of Loopt and it’s a dead ringer for Gowalla and Foursquare. Why do three individual applications do the job better than a LooptMegaSuperUltra or LooptStarMix? Call me coo-coo for crazy loopts but this would be the knock out champion in location based social media if their app strategy and program talent could squeeze back together.

Back to the original Loopt app for iPhone. I have more Loopt Friends than on any other app  so it’s heartbreaking to feel invested in a losing app. The user interface seems very outdated, it looks like your typical iPhone application with no custom divisions or buttons for your fingers. Essentially Loopt looks like a WebKit app. Loopt’s website isn’t much better after you log-in you see that the front end of the store was the makeover. It’s a great start but the inside of the Loopt building needs a lot of paint. My next sticking point  with Loopt is that it is ad supported, and it’s poorly done. If you go to your Friends tab in the bottom middle, possibly to add new friends where you might go to press suddenly shifts and a mobile ad pushes the fields down to make room for it. I felt like whenever an ad loaded it was trying to sneak in and get touched accidentally. This space should already be filled by an empty division waiting for the ad, not expanding upon it’s download. Take a look at the image gallery to view the change, it’s not subtle, it’s not Photoshop altered, nor did I change the scrolling position of the screen when captured. Lastly, if all of this wasn’t enough to make me delete the app, it can’t find the Jamba Juice that all the other apps were successful in searching for. I had to check-in at the Quiznos next door. Eliminated in the first round… done and done.

Gowalla

It’s hard not to fall in love with Gowalla right from the start. It’s defiantly been given complete love and attention from it’s makers, it shows. The best in app features are it’s multitude of add or find friend options, it’s location icons, trips and item collection. Adding friends is easy and you can search from your Address Book, Facebook, Twitter, Gmail, or by name. Gowalla’s claim to fame is it’s superbly detailed location icons. Gowalla has partnered with the talented folks at The Iconfactory and the artists have done a great job. If you own an Apple Macintosh Computer and have never customized the icon of a folder, you haven’t lived.

Unfortunately though, it’s not all sunshine and rainbows for this adventurous application. The single hardest thing to resolve with gowalla is a wrong password. To me this is a huge oversight on their part. From the login screen of the iPhone App or the mobile website sign-in page neither have a forgot password link. (You can see examples in the photos posted above.) The only way to resolve this crisis is to visit Gowalla’s homepage and click “Forgot” and then “Recover Password.” That’s IF you remember your original e-mail. I signed up from the iPhone so “forgot” that I used my MobileMe e-mail. If you enter the wrong email you get no prompts of any kind (Firefox or Safari) only upon the correct e-mail do they say check your e-mail. If you think maybe you registered via Facebook Connect and click that, enter your info, you get a black totally white browser page (again both Firefox 3.6 and Safari 4 & 5). Only upon successfully reseting my password could I resume using the service, it took me a while to get this sorted.

This is another check-in application (or game as some would categorize) that lacks the ability to share photos with check-in. May be not the focused intent by it’s creators but I feel like the supermodel of the apps would be photogenic also, but no they would rather break a heel on stage and fall into the crowd.

Over all I think Gowalla is a beautiful and full of value as a Prize Fighter. Lets hope it makes it to the finals.

Brightkite

Brightkite is the lean mean check-in machine. It’s got the muscle where it counts and it’s light on it’s toes. After the privacy hoopla from facebook the past few months, Brightkite’s inclusion of privacy controls was comforting. “Share this Checkin with: Only Me, Friends, Everyone” Why don’t all the mobile social media apps have this? It must be one of those “right under my nose” things. Brightkite wins the photo lightning round with a great big photo button on check-ins.  Twitter and Facebook Sharing is easy and a quick jab however it needs to be implemented in the “Add Friends” section.

To me this is a hollow victory since I’ve never had friends on Brightkite, sad I know.  The latest feature Group Text might change that, I’m itching to try it and see if it will indeed bring the love. I hope Brightkite still has some fight left in them. If they can focus on Foursquare as their villainous rival, implement some unique collectables, and showcase location based info from even it’s rivals, it could reign supreme.

Yelp

Jumping up from the sidelines and rushing into the arena dragging it’s chain behind, … Yelp! It would seem Yelp sounds more like a small yappy dog rather than a big red clifford but with it’s teeth sunk deeply into the reviewers market, Yelp has a lot of weight to throw around. I found it interesting that coming from the review based culture, in the mobile app reviews aren’t the priority. Checking-in shouts only a small “Quick Tip” with no ability to enter a star rating like a full fledged review. Quick Tips don’t show up anywhere on the actual business review pages from yelp.com, only on your profile, Facebook and Twitter. You can “Draft a Review” on the iPhone app but it’s not the same as Check-In. It seem like ultimately they want you to visit the site one way or another to complain about your under cooked burgers.

This applications user interface is by far the worst of the group. The large ugly buttons have little to no detail when you open the app. Whenever at the Home screen I feel like I’m using the Yellow Pages, yuck. Out of all the application, I found this ones to be the most frustrating to search for businesses that I know to be around my neighborhood. Banks, Bars, Gas Stations and others were impossible to find two blocks from the area. I don’t know if the search results are only based on business’ that have a Yelp review, or if the app is not capable of searching beyond a radius from where you are located. I found that to be a deal breaker, if Yelp can’t search my hometown or cities I visit accurately it fails. Better yet … Disqualified!

Twitter

I’ve read that only a small percentage of twitter user names are actual people tweeting on a regular basis; however given the recent purchase of Tweetie for iPhone, Twitter has claimed king of the hill with geographic locations. If Twitter wanted to rewrite the rule book on check-ins or location based social media it has the ability to do so. Even with making a paid app free, Twitter for iPhone has one of the best user interfaces in the iPhone app. The only flaw I could find was signing into the mobile webpage to enable geotagging. This should be hardcoded into the app in the future to maintain consistency.  The “Tweets nearby Radar,” although hidden under search as only a small round button, has to be one of the coolest features. If Twitter keep pouring it’s excellent talent into the application and features evolving the definition of tweeting, they could become the glorious victor of social media.

But wait there’s more!

Check.In

While doing research for this review I found an article talking about a new project from Brightkite. Check.In is the mobile web equivalent to TweetDeck, minus the Adobe Air thank god. Based on HTML 5 standards it’s ready for iPhone, iPad and Android devices. Currently you can register Brightkite and Foursquare; however Gowalla, Whrrl and TriOut are marked experimental (I’ve tried and they are). Even with Check.In being in it’s infancy I feel it’s a great project that hopefully will gain strength as others realize how fragmented the check-in battlefield is.

From their website : “Check.in is A Potentially Brilliant Remedy For Check-In Fatigue” – MG Siegler, Techcrunch

So please check out: Check.in and comment if you find it to be a useful bookmark on your smart device.
As for the battle royal between the Check-In Apps. Yelp is kicked out of the iPhone arena, My Loopt friends will be getting a text message breakup that I’m leaving them for a younger model and Foursquare, Brightkite, Gowalla and Twitter all have invitations back as reigning champions in the next Check-In App Battle!

(*  Versions installed and running as of the date of this review are as follows: Foursquare Version 1.8.3 / Gowalla Version: 2.1.2 / Brightkite Version: 2.5 / Loopt Version: 2.2.1 / Yelp Version: 4.1.1 / Twitter Version: 3.0.0)