iOS: Roamz is a new mobile app that uses your social networks and your location to help you discover activities, restaurants, attractions and other venues near you, wherever you may be. Whether you’re at home and want to try a new restaurant, or travelling far from home without a clue of where to go to unwind, Roamz can give you suggestions based on what everyone nearby is buzzing about.
Based on the premise of the TV show How I Met Your Mother, developer Mihai Parparita (he of Google Reader and Gmail user script fame) created Intersquares, a service that compares your Foursquare check-ins with any other Foursquare user to determine all the times you’ve been at the same place at the same time, whether you knew it or not.
Android: Thrutu is a free app that acts as a socially interactive layer for Android’s phone interface once a call has connected. It allows you to send information like your current location, a photo, contact information, or even a doodle that was drawn while speaking. If both people in the conversation have Thrutu installed on their phones, they can interactively draw together on a doodle whiteboard, see each other’s locations on a shared map, or even nudge the other person awake with a vibration. There are more actions that can be performed with plug-ins that can be installed after the main app, like sending money through PayPal or flipping a virtual coin to help nudge decisions along.
The upside of getting location-based ads on your mobile is they can alert you to discounts you might not otherwise spot, and which you can take advantage of immediately. The disadvantage is that letting a large corporate know exactly where you are can be, well, creepy. Which side of the fence do you sit on?
Depending on your temperament, you’ll have a different reaction to seeing a map of literally everywhere you’ve taken your iPhone (or 3G iPad) since you bought it. You might think it’s a neat hack to gain some perspective on your far-ranging life. Or you might wonder why Apple has been keeping this information all along.
