Check-in Articles on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog

Foursquare update restores nearby checkins

by Kelly Hodgkins (Aug 10th, 2012)

Foursquare angered some of its users when a June update stripped away the nearby friends feature. This group complained loud enough and long enough that foursquare decided to restore the feature in its latest update, which hit the iOS App Store on Thursday. The update lets you switch between ...

iOS app Viggle trying to turn second screen TV watching into cold, hard cash

by Mike Schramm (Jan 25th, 2012)

I've posted about the "second screen" idea before -- there is a growing trend among iOS and other mobile device users to both watch television or play games, and have their tablets or iPhones open and running apps related to that TV or gaming content, essentially using two screens at the same ...

Shopkick, Best Buy team up to use location-based app for loyalty program

by Mike Schramm (Aug 17th, 2010)

I've been a member of Best Buy's rewards program for a little while now -- as long as I'm spending way too much of my hard-earned money at the big box retailer, I figure I might as well try to get some of it back. And I was pretty impressed with what they've done on their website with the program -- ...

MyTown adds product check-ins

by Mike Schramm (Jul 26th, 2010)

Booyah's very popular MyTown app has updated again, this time bringing some more innovation to the "check-in" idea. Instead of just checking in to locations, the app will now "check-in" to various products with the iPhone's camera. So when you use a certain product, you can use the camera to scan a ...

MyTown 4.0 adds item creation, location tips

by Mike Schramm (Jun 5th, 2010)

Booyah has released MyTown 4.0 for the iPhone, the latest update to their extremely popular check-in game, and it adds a whole new round of social functions to the system. Properties that you own (which you get by checking-in at real-life properties) can now create items of their own, and different ...

Loopt teams with Mobile Spinach for check-in discounts, Booyah talks about MyTown

by Mike Schramm (Feb 8th, 2010)

If the iPhone has a leading app genre, aside from gaming, I'd say the current surge of "check-in" apps is probably it. Sure, back when the App Store first opened up, Twitter apps were everywhere (and they're still being made daily, it seems), but in terms of a genre that can only exist on a ...

Gowalla announces shared trips

by Mike Schramm (Feb 1st, 2010)

There's a growing battle lately on the App Store over "check-in" apps -- Foursquare, Gowalla, and MyTown have all seen big gains in users lately (and a few other contenders have been roaming the periphery), and it looks like we're starting to see some innovation in the mix. Gowalla recently updated ...

MyTown's uncanny success

by Mike Schramm (Jan 21st, 2010)

I posted a few things last year about Booyah, an app that promised a lot, but turned out to be not much more than your standard social networking/check-in app. And despite a little hype around its introduction, Booyah had some trouble finding an audience. But the developers (former Blizzard folks ...

Yelp updates with check-ins, Foursquare not happy

by Mike Schramm (Jan 19th, 2010)

Location-based social networking on the iPhone is a tough game to play, apparently -- the popular Yelp app [iTunes link] has recently updated to version 4.0, and along with a friend finder, hooks to Facebook and Twitter, and an updated version of their augmented reality Monocle feature, they've ...