Like the idea of "checking in" but all the hassle has you "checking out?" There may be a solution for you.
If you're like many of us, the idea of having to pull out your phone and load an app every time you visit a restaurant or store sounds tedious. Despite the hassle, check-in apps like Foursquare, Gowalla and Loopt have become very popular. While Loopt has updated their app to take some of the hassle out of this process, Foursquare and Gowalla have not. To fill this gap, one developer has created a new app that lets you check-in to locations on Foursquare with almost no effort.
The app, called
Future Checkin, connects to your Foursquare account and helps you set up a list of your favorite places. The app then runs in the background using iOS 4's new background location feature and automatically checks you in if your GPS reports that you're at one of those favorite locations. You can also tell the app to include recent places that you've checked in to, in case you don't want to add favorites manually.
To avoid invalid check-ins, the app will not check you in to the same place twice in a row and has a four hour delay between check-ins. If you want to check-in more frequently, or you are visiting someplace new, you can still load up the normal Foursquare app and check-in manually. The app also has other settings, like one that saves battery life by turning the GPS accuracy down.
The app developer states in an article on
TechCrunch.com that he plans to add Gowalla support in the near future and is just waiting on an API to be released from Gowalla. While it is possible that Foursquare will eventually add support for a similar feature in their own app, this may be the only app that performs this service for multiple sites.
The app is regularly priced at $1.99, but for this first week, it's on sale for $0.99. For frequent Foursquare users, this is something that is well worth the price. Make sure and check out
Future Checkin, available now in the App Store.
