Last month at Nokia World 2010 I caught a glimpse of Foursquare for Symbian, demoed by Foursquare stuff, and have been waiting patiently for it to become publicly available. Earlier October, it has been released to Ovi Store.
The Profile screen
Most Symbian users (me included) haven’t waited for the official app, using the excellent Gravity application to manage our twitter, facebook, google reader and foursquare – but Gravity had its limitations with Foursquare, such as adding/viewing tips and to-dos. After a week or so of using Foursquare for Symbian, couple of thoughts:
Richness of features
Unlike Gravity, Foursquare for Symbian has all the features of the other mobile apps (iPhone, Android and Blackberry) – a big advantage. Now, after checking-in to a place, I can view to-dos, add tips, view nearby twitter updates and much more. I can also approve/decline new requests and add new friends – actions I could do only on the web (or mobile web) until now.
Tips for Ben Gurion Airport
Register new users
A big plus for Foursquare. Although it’s the most popular LBS in the world, it still lags in total number of users compared to giants as facebook and twitter. The ability to join Foursquare from the app itself can ease hundreds of millions of Nokia owners into the location-based arena.
User interface
Something’s went wrong here, not clear why. In both the touch and keyboard versions (see Foursquare demoed on Nokia N8 at the bottom of this post), the actual screen allocated to Places, Friends, To-dos, is too small. The top and bottom include Foursquare and Phone menus, leaving just 2 lines of results to be displayed in each screen (Friends, Places, To-dos, Profile). Symbian is the 4th mobile app to be released (with Android already in V2.0), so the UX/UI was already available. Even on the N8, with its 3.6″ screen, there are too many menus and logos and too little LBS information.
Performance
Get used to this screen, speed isn't its strong suit
I tested Foursquare for Symbian on my Nokia E72, which was installed on the 8GB memory card, running from the phone’s 256MB memory (my actual free memory is under 60MB). Start-up time is awful, about 30 seconds and navigating from one screen to the next also takes too much time (compared to Gravity). An action of checking-in to a place (assuming the app is running) takes about 45-60 seconds – way to much for the mobile worker on the go.
Overall
Foursquare for Symbian was due a long time ago, but it’s finally here. The UI isn’t perfect and I would appreciate the option of changing the default ‘homepage’ (from Friends to Places). Nokia users finally have a free alternative (Gravity costs 9.95 USD) to help them make the first step into LBS.
Foursquare for Symbian
Download via Ovi Store (free)
Compatibility: Symbian S60 3rd Edition, 5th Edition and Symbian^3 (what version do I have?)
