Foursquare Splits Into Two Seperate Interfaces, Introduces Swarm App to Take Over Social Features

Foursquare has announced that it will be splitting into two different apps - Foursquare and a new app called Swarm.

The company has apparently recognized that about 95% of the time its user base only uses Foursquare for one of two reasons; they're either searching for places using the local discovery features or interacting with friends using the socially geared check-in features, but they rarely ever use the app to handle both of these tasks simultaneously.

To better accommodate the conflicting two-sided functionality of the app, Foursquare has created an entirely different social app called Swarm. Swarm will include all of the social/check-in features that let you connect with friends and share experiences.

Features like check-ins (letting your friends know where you're at), friend finding, and sharing will now be found in the Swarm app, which will aim to provide a more interactive and location-based approach within a robust new mobile social networking platform. 

In summary, Foursquare will be the app to go to when you're looking for the coolest spots or to share cool places you've found, whereas Swarm will provide a compact and user-friendy interface in which to quickly and easily connect with friends in your network.

Meanwhile, the removal of the social features in the Foursquare app's interface will allow for the introduction of a more comprehensive set of location discovery, search, and recommendation tools that will produce a much more personalized exploration experience. The developers have been putting a lot of effort into adding advanced features to the Foursquare app with the goal of creating a more powerful navigational tool that can compete with and potentially outdo mainstream services like Google Maps.

By focusing solely on the enhancement of the location-finding and map oriented tools within the Foursquare app, and creating a seperate project (Swarm) to absorb some of the unnecessary social perks, developers will be able to maximize the potential of each individual app.    

According to a statement posted on the Foursquare blog, the company has stated that the Foursquare app will be undergoing a significant "metamorphasis" in the near future. The development team will be adding changes to the app's interface that will greatly improve the user's ability to find and learn about locations.

The developers have made it their goal to create an app that can answer complex questions and commands about location discovery, like "where is the cheapest auto repair shop" or "give me a list of romantic attractions near New York."

However, just because most of the social features have been moved over to the new Swarm app doesn't mean that what's left of the Foursquare app will lose all social input; apparently the app will soon be able to recommend location discoveries based on the opinions and previous reviews of friends and local experts.

Foursquare has announced that the new Swarm app will be released on Android and iOS within the next few weeks, and on Windows Phone shortly after. On the other hand, the fully polished newly revamped version of the Foursquare app is set to be complete by later this summer.