Foursquare, the popular location-based social networking service, back in May took all the gamified features out of its main iOS client – the mayorships, check-ins, leaderboards, achievements and what not – and created a new app around them, Swarm. As a result, the main Foursquare app is now focused on place discovery , not the check-ins.
The lightweight Swarm app makes it easy to see who’s out nearby, who’s doing what, who wants to hang out later and more. Today, the app has received a refresh bringing out several new features.
Now available to download in the App Store, Swarm 1.0.6 features better check-ins, friend leaderboards, easier sharing, more detailed information about places and more…
For starters, Swarm now has a leaderboard showing you the location mayor among your friends, in line with Foursquare’s decision to limit mayorships to your friend circles rather than the entire network.
Speaking of places, the updated app now shows user-submitted photos of the place upon checkin in to it.
Key highlights include:
- More mayor: in each and every check-in, you can now see a leaderboard of your friends that shows who has been there the most, and who is the mayor amongst your friends.
- Easier sharing: you’ve asked for an easier way to send check-ins to Facebook and Twitter. This update has them.
- Better check-ins: we made a bunch of improvements on the backend, so check-ins should be faster and more accurate.
- More about the place you’re at: now, when you check in, you’ll see a couple great place photos of the place you’re at.
Download Swarm free of charge in the App Store.
The iPhone/iPod touch download requires iOS 7.0 or later.