It’s the end of an era for one of the App Store’s early success stories. Foursquare is shutting down its signature city guide app to “focus our efforts on building an even better experience in Swarm,” the company said in an update. The app will shut down on December 15, while the web version will remain online “until early 2025.”
The shutdown is a marked reversal of the strategy the company announced a decade ago when it controversially opted to split its famous “check-in” service into a separate app. That app became known as Swarm while the Foursquare-branded app became a “city guide” filled with user-generated reviews and local recommendations.
Now, Foursquare says its future is once again check-ins. “We’ve also been introducing exciting new features and capabilities to Swarm throughout the year (some of which may look familiar to you) to enable new use cases that better serve your needs,” the company said. It also said additional updates are expected “early next year.”
It’s unclear why the company is changing its strategy to make Swarm better than its namesake app. The company laid off more than 100 employees earlier this year in an effort to “streamline” operations. Foursquare founder Dennis Crowley, who is currently co-chairman of the company’s board of directors, said in a post on Threads that the company is “doing just fine,” though he expressed disappointment with the news. “I’d be lying if I didn’t admit I’ve been very upset about this news over the last few days,” he wrote.
If you’re a Prime member, you can save $50 on the recently released Colorsoft Kindle, also known as the first Kindle with color. This is the first discount we’ve seen on this model since its launch. We experienced the “yellow band” problem with our review unit, but later received an updated reader for which Amazon made “reasonable adjustments” to resolve the issue. The software and display adjustments the company implemented worked — and we actually liked the overall effect better. Check out our review for the full story.