Foursquare Redesigns Swarm App to Highlight Past Check-Ins

Foursquare has again updated its Swarm app to include new features for Android and iOS users. The most notable one is bringing its 'lifelog' feature front and centre, showing you a collection of all your check-ins from the past. For this purpose, Foursquare has updated the UX, re-visited the map view, and updated the stats dashboard as well.

Swarm v5.0 lets you see all of your check-ins in one place highlighted in your profile. It has an interactive map on top of the profile page itself that you can tap, go into, and look around. This map was first buried in a separate menu. This map throws stats of how many places you've visited in the past, the amount of check-ins you've done over a specified course of time, and the category of places you've visited. Inside the Swarm app, Foursquare now allows its users to plant a virtual flag on its check-in places, creating a memory of sorts, which can be revisited and seen the amount of places you've been to over time, and make you realise the ones that need to be visited. Essentially, it lets you reminisce on that vacation to Paris, family road trip, or all of the local coffee shops you've visited on a much more macro, memorable level.

Furthermore, there are now 100 collectible categories, each paired with a collectible sticker for better representation. The profile page of the user has also been revamped with easy and quick access to all of your stats about where you go and what you do. Your check-in maps are also now shareable for 'show-off' purposes.

Foursquare co-founder Dennis Crowley also wrote a medium post about this update, and how it took them almost six to eight months to perfect it. The app, in a nutshell, now heavily focuses on the number and categories of places you've been to, based on your check-ins, to give you a trend of what your dislikes and likes are over time, and recommends you places based on that data.

"We also try to go out of our way to help you find value in the patterns of the data. It could be, 'You haven't been here in 2 years!' or, 'This is your 3rd taco place this week!', or 'You've been to the gym at least 1x week for 7 months in a row!' Swarm was designed to help you become aware of your routines, and then nudge you to do more, encouraging you to try a new place or explore a different neighbourhood. This idea of 'software that encourages you to do/see/experience things you normally wouldn't' is something that has been core to us since our early days, and I'm excited to see it live on and thriving in Swarm," Crowley explains.

The new Swarm 5.0 is already available to iOS users in the App Store; however Android users will have to wait for about two weeks to get the update.