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Christmas weekend Foursquare started with the private beta for their Blackberry client. There are about a 1000 beta testers at this time, according to Foursquare.

The current beta is geared towards trackball Blackberries - the Storm is working, but the app is not using all of the options a Storm has (touchscreen, tilt functionality, etc). The final version will be using the full Storm functionality according to Foursquare.

There are several enormous benefits for Blackberry users. I found the mobile site at times very frustrating:

  • I kept moving around between cities, even while I was checking in.
  • The login itself failed sometimes even though I was typing in correct username and password (I think it was related to which login I used - the normal one on the main page or the mobile one)
  • If the app knows what city I’m nearest, and it can show the location of my venue on a map, why can’t it determine the location of where I am automatically?
The mobile app will show you on check-in what venues are closest. If none match, you can search for a venue by name. I don't think the beta has the option to add a venue yet.
When one of your friends checks in, you get an alert from the Foursquare app (provided it's running in the background). It shows the venue name, friend and any shout, and allows you to pull up more info or close the alert.
The new app looks like it's taking care of some of the problems (logging in!) and adds new functionality (the alert), but still needs to address some of the location check-in hassles. I'm looking forward to the final version, especially if that version has specific Storm support.