If you’re one of those that like to check-in at every place you go, you’ll know that now foursquare has a dedicated checkin app, Swarm. The old app is now all about exploring the city.
As every time a popular service changes, the Internet has gone nuts. People has started to publicly state that they are about to stop using it. Like if anybody cared.
After 5+ years of usage, I've just broken up with Foursquare over the horror that is their forced Swarm app install. https://t.co/BznIm03YFb
— David E. Weekly (@dweekly) July 22, 2014
Why so sad?
Apparently they don’t like the product decisions at Foursquare. I suppose that’s fine if you work for them or own shares on the company. I can see a shift this size affecting the app usage. But for a mere mortal like me, well we’re just a merchandise for them to trade.
Personally, I don’t care about them splitting their functionality in two. Actually, I’ve always found the recommendations side of the app pretty useless, so that angle won’t be missed from Swarm (if I’m looking for a nice restaurant nearby, one that’s 9km away from me is not helpful, thanks).
And I quite like the way they’re transitioning from one app to two. I’ve found the process quite smooth, even if Swarm is quite different from Foursquare. So I’m enjoying the transformation (and taking screenshots of it, you never know if a client will need something similar in the future).
Ultimately, people don’t hate change, they just hate when you change things for the sake of changing. Maybe the new Foursquare will be so amazeballs that everybody will agree that the move was genius. Maybe the app will fade, become irrelevant and be sold/close, like gowalla, who knows. But in the end, it’s Foursquare’s decision. Disagree if you want but, why so emotionally?