- August 29, 2013 01:30pm EST
In recent years, Foursquare has evolved from an online check-in service to a recommendations and reviews site that's creeping in on territory currently dominated by the likes of Yelp.Foursquare is taking that effort one step further today with the launch of a "smarter" experience on Android that will serve up intelligent, localized suggestions.
"We think of this feature like a sixth sense; proactive recommendations of things you didn't even know you were looking for," Foursquare said in a blog post.
What does a smarter Foursquare look like? "When you sit down to dinner, we might ping you with the can't-miss dish on the menu," Foursquare said. "Or when you arrive in a new neighborhood or city, we'll suggest a few places that your friends love. It's like having a ton of local friends stuffed in your pocket wherever you go."
Foursquare has held off on adding this feature because of issues with battery life and location accuracy. But the service insists that after "a ton of tinkering," battery drain is not a problem.
"From our internal tests on a bunch of phones, it only increases drain about 0.7 percent per hour, or, over the course of a day, the equivalent of about a 20-minute game of Angry Birds," Foursquare said.Meanwhile, Foursquare is leveraging its treasure trove of more than 4 billion check-ins and 32 million tips to improve location data.
"Today, with everything that Foursquare has learned about the world, it can be proactive recommendations – helping you discover the greatest things nearby without even having to open the app," Foursquare said. "You still check in when you want to share with friends, and now we may give you great recommendations even if you don't."
To start, this smarter experience will be available to "thousands" of Android users, but it will eventually expand to all Android users as well as those on iOS. "We're taking it a bit slow to make sure we get it just right, but hope to have it to everyone in the next few months," Foursquare said.
The announcement comes one day after Foursquare unveiled a new app for Windows 8. But in recent months, it has also launched self-serve ads for small businesses, partnered with Deezer on concert check-ins, added the ability to check in your friends, and launched