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Is there any way to play Foursquare on my laptop?

My friends are all into playing the game "FourSquare" and when I checked it out, it looks like it's only for smartphones like the iPhone. Kinda stinks because I don't have a "smart" phone, just a regular cellphone. Am I stuck in the cold, or is there some way to play FourSquare from my Mac laptop?


Dave's Answer:

Until about an hour ago, i would have said that you're right, if you don't have an iPhone or similar, you were out of luck, whether you were highly mobile or not, but a slick new app just showed up that lets you play the popular geolocation game FourSquare on a MacBook, iMac, or similar.

Now why would you play a game about geographic location on a stationary computer? Well, if it is a desktop computer and you never move around, what you'll get from the new app, FoursquareX, is the ability to keep track of your friends as they check in at different places, but if you have a mobile computer like a MacBook Pro, you'll be able to check in, track other checkins, and play the game as you move around.

To get started, you need to start out by getting a Foursquare account, which you can do by going to the company's Web site at PlayFoursquare.com. If you have an iPhone, Android phone or Palm phone, grab the app too: it's pretty darn fun.

Now grab the FoursquareX application and start it up. First thing it'll want is - no surprise - your login credentials:

foursquarex login

Now here's something you're probably not used to seeing in a modern Macbook application:

foursquarex use current location

Now, as I understand it, the application is figuring out your location based on the identity of the wifi network, IP address, and similar. Don't know exactly, but I will say that it figured out where I am to within a few hundred yards, which is pretty darn cool considering my laptop doesn't have any sort of GPS hardware within!

So that's all well and good, but where are my friends right now, according to Foursquare?

foursquarex friend locations

I have to say, that is very cool. Even better, you can have accidental discovery by letting the application notify you when people check in at your current venue even if you don't know them, by tweaking the Preferences setting:

foursquarex preferences

Many kudos to programmer Eric Butler for creating FoursquareX. I'm become an instant fan!



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Comments

Was excited to install it, but it's for Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard only. :(

Posted by: valdezign at January 17, 2010 10:29 PM

I have something to say, now that you mention it, but ...
Starbucks coffee cup I do have a lot to say, and questions of my own for that matter, but first I'd like to say thank you for all your efforts on this Web site by buying you a cup of coffee!

I do have a comment, now that you mention it!











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