QuickAdvice: Conquer Your Neighborhood On Foursquare With Mayorama
Mayorama ($0.99) by Daniel Luxemburg is an app to let you see all of your Foursquare mayorships at a glance.
Let's face it - foursquare is hot. And one reason behind this is the mayorship. Admit it - you care about how many mayorships you control, and you may get upset if you're ousted. Yes, it's a pointless thing, but aren't pointless things just some of the most fun things [for some reason]?
Now you can conquer your neighborhood with Mayorama. When you log in, it will begin to analyze your check-ins. This part of the app can take a while, so I'd suggest you wait or keep trying. It's also the most frustrating part, but I'll get into that in a bit.
When you finally log in, the first thing you'll see is a list of your current mayorships, called the 'Base'. The app will also display how many valid visits you've had lately, and how long it has been since your last valid visit. Refresh the screen to view any newer mayorships you may have just acquired.
The next tab will be the Targets. You'll find a list of 'Nearby' venues that are currently around your location, and it will display how many checkins are required to get mayorship. If you have any venues that you already checkin to frequently, they will be shown under a section called 'My Favorites.'
Once a venue from this list is selected, you get a split screen where you can view a map of where it is, and any venue checkin information that will help you acquire mayorship. The most important piece of information is 'Visits needed,' but total checkins, valid visits, recent visits, and mayor visits are also displayed. If there is a Mayor special at the venue, it will be shown. Are you at this location? Don't forget the green Check-in button at the top corner.
If you go back to the main Targets list, you can sort the nearby venues by Visits Needed, Distance, Venue Type, and Default. More of a visual person? Hit the Map button, and you'll get a Google Map with red pushpins of nearby venues. If you are the mayor of one of these venues, it will be purple. Tapping a red pushpin will display how many visits are needed.
There is a lack of a search feature in the Targets list, which is disappointing. So if there's a venue that you know is close but it's not showing in the list, there's no way to search for it to see the minimum checkin requirement. Adding a Search feature would be a great idea and the developer should strongly consider it.
Overall, the app presents mayorship information in a streamlined fashion. The only problem I have with the app is that it rarely works. I've been wanting to review the app since it first came out, but I was never able to login and therefore postponed this review.
There's been an update and it supposedly fixed the freezing login issue, but I notice that I still had problems loggin in today. It would also be stuck at the main splash screen and took a couple of tries to get rid of it and actually move forward.
Then the first time I tried logging in it gave me the message saying 'something is wrong, try again later'. So I tried again after manually quitting the app and finally got in for pretty much the first time.
I also notice that it's a bit choppy when switching to the map/list view of Targets and when trying to filter the Target list. I was testing the app on an iPhone 4. Not a huge issue, but choppy transitions can be a bit irritating, especially when on the latest and greatest.
The app works well when it works, but the problem is getting the app to work. The overall idea and concept is great, the information is well presented, but the app needs to work when the user wants it to work. It can't be working whenever it feels like working. Thankfully once you get past these issues, you don't have to deal with it again, unless you log out of your account.
Hopefully the login and splash screen freezing issues can be fixed in a future update. Until then, you can try your luck with getting the app to work on the first try, or you can wait for an update that will make all these little problems go away.
It's got potential, for sure. But needs more polish.
