Added some cool stuff to neato! last night. You’ll get this update probably tomorrow, with some other enhancements as well.

By popular demand, you can now e-mail yourself the link to get the bookmarklet so you don’t have to retype it on your computer.

And you can probably see that history button there too. Yep, you can view the last 10 messages sent to your phone, even if neato! wasn’t running at the time. Great in case your screen shut off before you sent the item, or maybe your phone’s across the room. Tapping on an item in the list will launch it exactly like neato! does when receiving it from your web browser.

And, now you’ll be able to select which maps app opens Google Maps URLs, and, you’ll be able to decide whether Internalz or Preware opens links to ipk files. Basically, this allows you to install homebrew with about 2 clicks, with no copy/pasting or retyping or emailing yourself links.

Also, a little fun fact: your bookmarklet is secretly already working with Precentral. When viewing a homebrew app in the Precentral homebrew catalog, like, say Dr. Podder, instead of highlighting the URL of the ipk and using the copy/pasted text to copy/paste into Preware or Internalz like Precentral’s video explained, in the new version simply clicking neato! while viewing a homebrew app listing will grab the ipk URL automatigically and open it on your phone with Internalz or Preware, depending on your settings.

Also, now the Text View screen allows you to not only Copy the text sent to your phone, but you can now easily open up a new e-mail or SMS message with the text pre-filled in the body of the message.

Two more features you can’t see in these screenshots:

If the text you’ve highlighted on a webpage is a phone number, the Phone dialer app will open with the number pre-filled for you. neato! supports a variety of phone number formats, so it should work fine. It may have issues with international numbers, but I’m working on that.

The final new fetaure is, if the text you’ve highlighted on a webpage is a URL, neato! treats it like a URL. So if you’re reading a forum and someone pasted a URL in a message, highlight it, and send it to neato! and it’ll open up on your phone, just as if you were viewing that page. This works great for sites other than Precentral that link to homebrew.

I have a lots more features still on the way (like sending from your phone to your computer!), but this next update will be a huge boost. You’ll likely see it on Wednesday night.

Also, make sure you keep an eye on this post from yesterday to see all the different ways people are using neato!. I’m updating it as I see new ways.

My first paid app appeared in the Palm App Catalog this weekend. To me, it’s super useful, but the abilities of it may not be immediately apparent to everyone, so I figured I’d shed some light on some use cases.

First, you should pick up neato! for a cool $1.43 from the App Catalog here.

After downloading and installing the app on your phone, launch neato! and tap the “Generate URL” button. That’ll give you a unique URL that you need to visit on your computer, not on your phone. Visit the URL on your computer and drag the link it gives you to your bookmark toolbar in your web browser. You’re done!

Now, neato!’s core capability is sending the current URL in your web browser to your phone and having it instantly open on your phone’s browser. This will work on any website. It’s super hand for taking long blog posts on the road, or maybe there’s a site you’d rather have on your phone. But this functionality exposes lots more!

Transfer PC Bookmarks to Your Phone
Load up a bookmark on your PC, click “neato!” and once it’s open on your phone, bookmark it on your phone.

Use it as a poor man’s Read It Later
Say you’re reading a blog post somewhere and have to leave your computer, or maybe you want to go relax on the couch instead of sitting at your desk. Click “neato!” and start reading from your phone.

Use webOS’s multitasking to watch how-to videos while working or playing
There are lots of how-to videos for webOS and webOS apps available on YouTube, and since you can have a game or website open while having a YouTube video open on webOS, you can swipe back-and-forth easily! Great for Angry Birds walk-throughs.

Take driving directions with you on the go!
The neato! bookmarklet is smart: it knows when you’re on a Google Maps page. One problem with Google Maps is, since everything is handled with JavaScript, the URL in your browser never changes, so you can’t just send that URL to your browser. Luckily, neato! is smart enough to find the true URL to your current view or directions in Google Maps and it sends that to your phone instead! And the directions open in the Google Maps app, to boot!

Open Apps from the Palm website into the App Catalog on your phone
When viewing an App Catalog link on your computer, you see a page like this giving you some screenshots and information about the app. It’s handy, but then getting that app on your phone isn’t so easy. You can either search for the app by name in the catalog, or use Palm’s handy “Send to my phone” feature straight from the page. The problem with the latter method is that it sends a text message to your phone which, aside from possibly costing you money, can take a while to get to your phone sometimes. Clicking “neato!” while viewing an App Catalog URL instantly opens the App Catalog straight to the app you want, ready to download. (Thanks @acarback!)

Send short clips of text to your phone to SMS to a friend.
Maybe a joke or funny tweet, or a friend’s address needs to be texted to another friend. Normally, you’d have to re-type the text on your phone from your PC, but now you can just click “neato!” and have the text, ready to be edited and copy/pasted popped up on your phone.

Open PDFs on your phone
When viewing a PDF in your browser, neato! will open the PDF in the PDF Viewer app on your phone! (thanks, @linuxq!) 

Stream music on your phone!
If the URL of the page you’re on on your PC’s browser is an audio file, neato! will open it on your phone with the Music app. 

There are TONS more uses for neato! that even I haven’t stumbled upon. However, here’s some that coming soon, but aren’t yet active:

• Open homebrew apps listed on webOSRoundUp and PreCentral in Internalz or Preware on your phone to make downloading faster and easier
• When text being sent to neato! is a phone number, phone dialer opens with phone number pre-populated (but doesn’t dial it)
• When text being sent to neato! is a URL you highlighted and sent (i.e., an un-linked URL from a forum), URL opens in browser, like sending a normal URL

So, how are you guys using neato!? If you’ve come up with any interesting uses, comment with them below and I’ll edit this post with them here!

Thanks for downloading, btw!

Ok, guys, I just submitted my second app to Palm. The cool part is: I started writing it last night. It’s also a paid app. More on that later.

The new app is named neato!. Yes, the exclamation point is part of the name. What is neato!? neato! is basically my webOS interpretation of Chrome to Phone for Android. Only, neato! has a few extras and advancements. The guys at PreCentral’s prayers have been answered. (Also, you should always pay attention to my comments I make on PreCentral and webOSRoundUp: Chances are, I’ll give hints to my new apps! As evidenced here.)

If you aren’t familiar with Chrome to Phone, it’s an Android app and a Chrome web browser extension. Once paired together, clicking on the Chrome to Phone button in your web browser will open the current web page almost instantly on your Android phone. It’s a pretty cool idea.

Here’s where neato! improves on CtP:

There’s no browser-specific extension. neato! generates a unique bookmarklet that you drag to the bookmarks bar on your favorite browser of choice. I’ve tested neato! on Firefox 3.6 (Mac & Win), Safari 5 (Mac), Chrome (Mac & Win), Internet Explorer 7 (Win). I suspect it’ll work on pretty much every other browser too.

neato! will also take whatever text is selected on a web page and send it to the phone. A scene will pop open on the phone with a text field populated with the same text you selected on the web page! You’ll be able to edit the text before you copy it to the clipboard.

Google Map URLs open to the same view you see on your browser in the Google Maps app on your webOS phone. The same goes for YouTube links.

Coming in the next version:

• When selected text is a telephone number, open the phone dialer with the phone number ready to be dialed.
• When selected text is an address, open it in Google Maps

neato! is smart to conserve bandwidth and battery power. When neato! detects that your phone’s screen has turned off, neato! will disconnect and stop waiting for messages. When your screen turns back on again, neato! will reconnect and be ready to listen again!

Hopefully it gets approved by Palm soon. I’ll let everyone know when!

Oh, and the app is priced at $1.43. I made this a paid app for two reasons: 1) some actions take place using my web server, which will lead to more bandwidth usage for me and more costs. 2) the technology behind neato!, PubSubHubBub is powered by PubNub. PubNub is a free API layer for PubSubHubBub, but they start charging me after 5000 hits, so the cost of the app is to offset those future costs. Hopefully I can bring the cost down one day, but for now, it’s at an easy $1.43.

Here’s some screen shots:

There’s not a whole lot to see with this app, as it’s mostly the action behind it that’s interesting.

Let me know what you think!

I’m going to launch a snap-judgement on Facebook’s new Places feature, merely because I haven’t used it yet.

I echo Dennis Crowley’s comment that if Facebook wants in, then that means location will be a big platform for a while. That’s a good thing for foursquare and others like them.

But I am a bit nervous for foursquare. They were the only location-aware platform that is a Facebook “partner” that didn’t get early access to the Places API. This means foursquare is the only one without any integration into Places right now. (Well, not in development, at least).

But here’s the thing: I don’t think many people will leave foursquare for Facebook Places. Will lots of people use Places? Of course! It’s Facebook, that’s how it goes. If Places does anything, it will keep some people from joining foursquare. However, I’m willing to bet the majority of those people wouldn’t have ever joined foursquare in the first place, so it’s sort of a moot point.

Most people right now think sharing location data is a breach of your personal privacy, hence PleaseRobMe, and the wealth of blog posts whining about it. Most people hide foursquare check-ins that appear in their Facebook News Feed, and I see people whining about foursquare check-in tweets on Twitter daily. Right now, location is a niche and foursquare is at the center and top of that niche right now.  They’re offering an experience not available on any other social network: not Gowalla, not Yelp, not BrightKite, and not Facebook. The gaming aspect is better, the integration with real-world businesses is better, and they’ve already got a huge database of tips and tags and categorized venues.

A lot of people are worried about Places killing foursquare. To them, I ask “When has Facebook ever killed anything?”

When Facebook changed their stream to echo Twitter’s, people said it would kill twitter. Twitter still has millions of users and more and more businesses and individuals are joining every day. 

When Facebook launched its Marketplace, everyone said it would kill eBay and Craigslist. Does anyone even use Marketplace? And eBay and Craigslist are still going strong, and Craigslist is inching more and more into the public consciousness every day.

Facebook has been reported as the largest photo sharing site. Flickr, Picasa, and Photobucket are all still flooded with millions of images and users.

Facebook has also been reported as the largest video sharing website. YouTube and Vimeo are, like the photo sites, filled with millions of videos and users and grow every day.

When link sharing came to Facebook, people thought it was the end of bookmarking websites. Delicious is still huge and has millions of links posted to it.

And here’s why: few people generate original content solely on Facebook. Facebook has evolved into a Grand Central Station of social data from your friends. They cross-post statuses to Twitter and Facebook. They import their blog’s RSS feed into Notes. They crosspost photos to Flickr, Picasa, and Facebook. They bookmark links on Facebook and Delicious, and share them on Twitter and Facebook. They upload videos to Vimeo and YouTube and then post the link on Facebook.

I see location data being the same thing. Foursquare users will start using Facebook Places, no doubt about it, but they’ll be using Foursquare to initiate that data.

To many casual web users, Facebook is the entire Internet. In some ways, it is: it has so many features that, if it had a better search function, you could theoretically find any info you need on Facebook because someone most likely has posted a picture, video, link, or status about it. It’s the Google of social networking and adding in location data is a natural progression. I see Places as opening naysayers’ minds to accept location data as an acceptable thing to share with their friends and it will likely open them up to more specialized services, like foursquare.

Foursquare is a giant in its niche and I don’t see that changing. Places won’t make your mom or dad start checking-in, and it won’t make privacy zealots start checking-in either. It will, however, make those on the fence give it a shot. I post photos to Facebook and always have (and still do), but one day I needed something better, so I started using Flickr. I suspect something similar will happen with foursquare.

Came across this article today: http://www.connectioneconomy.com/2010/08/09/as-google-wave-dies-heres-what-foursquare-does-not-understand-about-social-media/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed:+WhatIcAtTomorrowToday+(%3Fic+%40TomorrowToday.biz)

I don’t totally agree.

• They have failed completely to discuss and engage with users on the issue of security. I personally don’t have a problem checking in and letting my friends know where I am, but many people do fear the openness of letting others know their physical movements. Foursquare needs to actively engage in debate and social values shaping conversations.
   Check in off the grid if you don’t want people to see. Only your friends can see your check-ins. Don’t push check-ins to twitter and Facebook if you don’t want others to see. If you want to push to Facebook, set your default publishing settings to “friends only” and set your Twitter tweets to “protected”. Only friends can see.
• Their iPhone app provides no information from Foursquare. On a few occasions, Foursquare has shut down in order to do upgrades. But all that happens on their App and website is that nothing works. No messages, no interactions, no connection…
  This may be the case, but the webOS app gives pop-up errors on every internet connection attempt.
• When you move from one city to another, you start all over again. It treats each city entirely independently. For what reason? 
  This hasn’t been true for a long time. Since the launch of “foursquare everywhere”  you have one set of badges. There aren’t Newbie badges in every city anymore. This whole argument is invalid. You can see your mayorships from around the world too.
• It provides no connections with my friends. Why is there no “friends nearby” feature? And why are there no features to challenge friends, connect with friends, chat to friends? This surely is the key to social media success: that you create connections between people, and enable them to connect with each other. Foursquare doesn’t do this.
  There’s a friends map in webOS and iPhone. That lets you see nearby friends quite easily.  Connect and chat are done through other means. This is why foursquare is for friends in real life, not just internet friends. Foursquare exposes your cell phone number to your friends, and from their profile you can initiate a text or phone call. Why build a chat layer into a service when you already have a phone?
• It does not provide “near things”. The only “near here” type functions are paid for adverts called “specials nearby”. But what about “places your friends frequent” or “places your friends have written tips about” or “most visited place near here”?
  Nearby places. Nearby friends. Nearby tips. Also, Specials are NOT paid for. They’re free. Anyone with a business can set one up. 
• It doesn’t do competition well. I have an ongoing battle with “Kay A.” for the mayorship of Raynes Park train station. But, there is very little way for me to interact with Kay. More importantly, neither of us know where we are in the competition stakes. The system doesn’t let me know how many check ins I need in order to become mayor, or how close other people are behind me in the race. Each venue needs a “leader board” type function to raise the stakes of competition. Otherwise, it loses its lustre very quickly.
  Link your account though twitter. Or, I’d argue, why communicate at all? The fun is the silent competition. By allowing communication, you open the door to harassment. Also, it doesn’t tell you how many checkins you need to become mayor for a reason: it curbs cheating. Go to whenwillibecomemayor.com if you’re that curious.
• What’s the point? Badges are too hard to earn. I can leave tips at venues, but there is no incentive to do so. Companies are given no incentive to interact with regular attenders. And so on… Incentives are required
  Fun, entertainment? Why play a video game? You don’t get anything but meaningless achievements or trophies. It’s just fun! Also, the incentive to leave tips is to encourage others to leave good tips, thus making both yours and their experience better. I think a businesses reason to interact is more sales, more money, and more people being in their store or restaurant. If people are fighting for a mayorship or a special badge, they’ll frequent a place.
• Finally, providing feedback to the system (especially, for example, indicating duplicate venues) is a really long and complicated procedure (and is not a feature of the iPhone app – why not?). This functionality also needs to be delegated down to “editors” in local areas (think of how Wikipedia manages content).
  Not long and  difficult. IN every app and on the website, you have at most two clicks or taps to mark a venue as closed, wrong address, mislocated, or a duplicate. And, there are three levels of Super Users and only a certain number per city that go through these flaggings and fixes the venues. So, everything he’s asking for already exists.

Not bashing the article (well, maybe I am) but maybe do some google or twitter searches before writing an article? Or visit support.foursquare.com first?

Synergy: it’s possibly the best thing about webOS. I can access multiple phone numbers, e-mail addresses, IM accounts, and Facebook account for a single contact, all in one place. After adding my Facebook account, I can upload pictures and video direct from the OS.

But Synergy can be so much more. For instance, look at Facebook: without a patch, adding your account doesn’t enable Facebook chat through the Messaging app, like AIM and other accounts do. 

And Twitter — there’s really no support for Twitter built into the OS, save for Universal Search.

Here’s my proposal to Palm: have an Accounts app where I can add my Facebook, Twitter, and other social media accounts. Let me send and receive Facebook messages through the Mail app as an account in the app. Let me chat through Facebook chat. Create a Publish app that lets me send pictures and text to Facebook and Twitter separately or cross-post to both. Build this into the OS.

And, allow apps to post through these accounts and get info from a user’s social graph. Similar to how apps ask to use Location Services, an alert that asks the user if, say, Bad Kitty can use your Twitter account. No need to go through the OAuth steps for every app that uses Twitter. Same goes for Facebook.

Now, obviously, this poses a problem for app branding. Facebook and Twitter each allow apps to have links below each post saying “via App Name” and that links to the website of the app, which promotes the app with each Tweet or status update. If every webOS app used the already-linked accounts in webOS, every app would say the same “via webOS” tagline. Not that helpful for developers. However, if I had both my professional account (zhephree) and my personal account (sirgeoph) already linked to webOS, a Twitter app like Bad Kitty could query the list of Twitter accounts and say “Authorize these accounts with Bad Kitty?” and as a suer taps on each account, they walk through the OAuth (or XAuth if webOS stored both the username and password) path to authorize the app to use those accounts, which then gives us the normal “via AppName” bylines.

While that might not save actual time, it does make the process seem easier. If I just had to tap on a few buttons to link an account that’d be way better than typing in my username in each app.

Or, if webOS stored the username and password for each account, an API in the SDK could have a method for connecting via XAuth. An app could initiate Mojo.Social.authorizeTwitter(“zhephree”) and then webOS would handle exchanging the username and password for a token which is then passed back to the application. This way, the app never gets the credentials, but it does get an authorization token so it could perform actions on behalf of the user. This makes things a bit more secure as you only give your phone your credentials and they could be encrypted and each app never sees the actual credentials.

This would require no typing from the user, just tapping a few confirmation dialogs. This would allow even more rapid development on webOS AND help make the OS more Synergistic. 

Just some thoughts.

Foursquare (the service) has come a long way. The service has almost 2 million users, is available in every country, on every major mobile OS, have over 100,000,000 total check-ins, and are adding over 10,000 new users every day. They’ve partnered with dozens of mainstream corporate sponsors and tourism centers. And they show no sign of stopping.

Foursquare for webOS has come a long way, too. The app entered into the official App Catalog just after midnight on January 1st, 2010 as the 999th app in the catalog. It was buggy, but it did the job. In the almost 8 months the app has existed, it has gone from 0.6 to 1.5 and has had a multitude of visual changes and features added, many features which aren’t available in other foursquare clients. The app has been rated by PC Magazine in the 10 Best webOS apps, and the users have selected it as one of the top 5 webOS social networking apps on PreCentral. 

So, I’d like to share some interesting stats about the app.

• As of yesterday, the official app has had over 40,000 downloads.
• Its rating in the catalog has increased by 0.2 in just a week (Now a 3.6, the highest it’s been)
• Since the launch of v1.5, we’ve had over 6,000 downloads
• We used to average 178 downloads per day (as of July 18), but are currently averaging 470 per day.
• Almost half (48%) of users use the app every day
• The most popular users of the app are English speaking Americans on Sprint using a Pre, with Germany in a distant second place.
• Assuming all 40,000 downloads are active users, webOS users account for approximately 2.2% of all foursquare users. In February, we accounted for 1%.

Now, I know those raw numbers aren’t astounding, especially because there are webOS apps out there with three times as many total downloads, but considering this is a niche app for an up-and-coming social networking service, I think it’s pretty good. And what’s probably more important than the total numbers is the rate of growth the app (and the service) have seen in less than a year. The fact that in the last week our total downloads per day almost quadrupled, I’d say we’re growing pretty well.

Obviously there are improvements the app can have, but v1.5 is the first version I’ve felt 100% comfortable with in a while. 

I’m all about transparency, and this post is a step toward that. I’d appreciate it if you haven’t rated and/or reviewed the app in the official App Catalog, please do! The higher the rating, the more exposure it gets and the more exposure it gets, the more inclined I am to work harder on it and the more likely new apps will come from me (one of which is in development).

So, thanks so much for supporting the app! The insane amount of feedback I’ve received via e-mail, Twitter, Facebook, and my forum on PreCentral has been amazing and has been a huge reason many bugs have been fixed and features have been added. If I did an inventory, I’d be willing to bet only about 50% of all items in the app’s changelog were thought of or discovered by me. You guys probably chimed in with the rest.

So, thanks again, guys! Keep the feedback coming.

The newest version of the webOS foursquare app is now available in the App Catalog. It’s got like infinity bug fixes and tweaks.

Full list:

• search now does livesearch as you type
• fixed display bug in nearby venues list
• fixed a bug that incorrectly said you unlocked a mayor special if you checked into another venue that you actually were the mayor of
• fixed a bug that showed the search field if you tapped the gesture area or swiped back
• added forward swipe gesture to refresh nearby venues and friends’ checkins a la Bad Kitty
• can now attach videos to check-ins and shouts
• extended log-in timeout to 15 seconds instead of 10
• supports setting ringtone from Free Music Ringtones app
• added ability to launch venues from a url or venue ID by passing them as launchParams
• added character counter below shout and checkin text fields
• photohost list on shout and checkin now remember last host selected
• User twitter profiles can be opened in Bad Kitty, TweetMe, or web browser
• fixed a bug where after adding a tip, venue info items would repopulate
• GPS accuracy slider preference now correctly shows its setting when initially launching preference dialog
• GPS accuracy slider preference now shows value while slider and not just when sliding is finished
• fixed a bug that would prevent login if you changed your password
• twitter links that go to web browser now open in mobile.twitter.com (nicer) instead of m.twitter.com
• tapping a nearby special now opens that venue’s detail scene
• app reports stats to Metrix
• created AJAX wrapper functions that trap server errors and siplay messages accordingly
• if user unchecks Show Your Friends checkbox, app now unselects Share with Twitter and Facebook
• changed wording on Duplicate Venue error to be less confusing
• fixed double special bug
• fixed live search to not do 3 http requests when pressing enter
• tips and todos are now tabbed instead of being in one list
• when adding a venue, you can now search Google for the address
• friend requests are now displayed in the navigation menu
• added preference to opt-out of metrix statistics sending
• tapping the foursquare logo scrolls the scene back to the top
• added preference to let dashbopard notifications autoclose after a user-defined amount of time;
• fixed 0m Accuracy GPS bug
• removed old buttons from nav header
• restored tappability to Better Accuracy Refresh button
• back gesture now moves though Category picker tree
• LiveSearch is now after 2 characters and the delay is shorter
• when swiping back during a photoupload on a checkin or shout, a warning asks if you’d like to cancel the upload and checkin or shout
• banner notification when upload starts now refers to Media instead of Photo
• User Info scenes now use commandmenu buttons instead of tabs
• created templates for Who’s Here list of users and looks nicer and cleaner
• venue detail commands are now command buttons and not tabs
• tips on venue detail now shows time created
• tips on venue detail is cleaned up
• searching google now fills in venue phone number when adding a venue
• better pinch and squeeze zoom on maps
• when adding a new venue, users can adjust the lat, long of the venue by tapping on a google map
• tapping icons on friend and venue maps actualy shows info window
• empty tips and todos lists now let the user know that there aren’t any items
• empty tips on venue detail now alerts user in a friendlier way
• added icon next to friend requests in navmenu
• fixed a bug on Pixi where tapping a badge on another user’s profile, the tooltip would be under the commandmenu and unreadable
• when editing a venue, dialog inputs previous category and icon

Download it!

I got an alpha preview of Twimbow, a new web-based Twitter client. It’s really slick-looking and allows you to color-code tweets based on hashtag, username, or keyword. Great so you don’t skip over a tweet you might actually be interested in.

At home, I have Twimbow setup as a Fluid site-specific browser. This is good because it gives me a dock icon for quick access to the site and it throws it into a different window and process so it’s separate from my regular web browsing and developing. Plus, it makes it feel more like a desktop app than a web app.

Anyway, I found myself switching back to the window every so often to see if I had any new tweets or mentions. It got annoying. So, I wrote a Fluid Greasemonkey script to check for new tweets and then display the count as a badge on the Twimbow dock icon and it also pops up a Growl notification! It was quick and easy!

To use this, download Fluid and install it. Set up a new SSB by launching the app and filling in the details. Make sure you select my PNG file as the Application icon. After you save the new SSB and launch it, from the menubar, click the Script icon and select “Open User Scripts Folder”. Drag and drop the twimbow.notifications.user.js file to this folder. Refresh the Twimbow app (Command+R) and go to the Script icon menu and select “twimbow notifications” and it’ll place a checkbox next to it in the menu. Refresh once more and now you’re done! The script will be loaded automatically every time you launch Twimbow. 

You can download the script below, as well as an application icon I made from their favicon.

Twimbow Fluid Greasemonkey script: Download (Right-click, save as)

Twimbow Fluid application icon: Download

Hey, everyone. The newest version of Foursquare for webOS (v1.5) is almost ready. I hope to have it in public beta this weekend.

I posted a changelog a week or two ago and since then, I’ve almost doubled it. I thought I’d share that and some pictures with you guys.

I revamped the Who’s Here? section to make it easier to read. Shouts are more obviously shouts. If the user checks-in without a shout, it looks the same, minus the blue speech bubble. Links work, too. This view is also how tips look on a venue’s info screen.

Not only can you search for a venue’s info using Google, you can also fine-tune the GPS position of a venue by tapping on the embedded Google map. This way, if your phone says you’re two blocks away, the venue won’t be in Foursquare’s database two blocks away but with the right address.

Now when a list of something (tips, to-dos, badges, mayorships, etc) is empty, instead of just showing a blank screen, the app tells you that there is nothing to show. This takes some of the guessing of whether the servers are up or down away. Plus, it looks nicer.

These are some of the features and improvements I’ve done for 1.5. Here’s the full list:

• search now does livesearch as you type
• fixed display bug in nearby venues list
• fixed a bug that incorrectly said you unlocked a mayor special if you checked into another venue that you actually were the mayor of
• fixed a bug that showed the search field if you tapped the gesture area or swiped back
• added forward swipe gesture to refresh nearby venues and friends’ checkins a la Bad Kitty
• can now attach videos to check-ins and shouts
• extended log-in timeout to 15 seconds instead of 10
• supports setting ringtone from Free Music Ringtones app
• added ability to launch venues from a url or venue ID by passing them as launchParams
• added character counter below shout and checkin text fields
• photohost list on shout and checkin now remember last host selected
• User twitter profiles can be opened in Bad Kitty, TweetMe, or web browser
• fixed a bug where after adding a tip, venue info items would repopulate
• GPS accuracy slider preference now correctly shows its setting when initially launching preference dialog
• GPS accuracy slider preference now shows value while slider and not just when sliding is finished
• fixed a bug that would prevent login if you changed your password
• twitter links that go to web browser now open in mobile.twitter.com (nicer) instead of m.twitter.com
• tapping a nearby special now opens that venue’s detail scene
• app reports stats to Metrix
• created AJAX wrapper functions that trap server errors and siplay messages accordingly
• if user unchecks Show Your Friends checkbox, app now unselects Share with Twitter and Facebook
• changed wording on Duplicate Venue error to be less confusing
• fixed double special bug
• fixed live search to not do 3 http requests when pressing enter
• tips and todos are now tabbed instead of being in one list
• when adding a venue, you can now search Google for the address
• friend requests are now displayed in the navigation menu
• added preference to opt-out of metrix statistics sending
• tapping the foursquare logo scrolls the scene back to the top
• added preference to let dashbopard notifications autoclose after a user-defined amount of time;

• fixed 0m Accuracy GPS bug
• removed old buttons from nav header
• restored tappability to Better Accuracy Refresh button
• back gesture now moves though Category picker tree
• LiveSearch is now after 2 characters and the delay is shorter
• when swiping back during a photoupload on a checkin or shout, a warning asks if you’d like to cancel the upload and checkin or shout
• banner notification when upload starts now refers to Media instead of Photo
• User Info scenes now use commandmenu buttons instead of tabs
• created templates for Who’s Here list of users and looks nicer and cleaner
• venue detail commands are now command buttons and not tabs
• tips on venue detail now shows time created
• tips on venue detail is cleaned up
• searching google now fills in venue phone number when adding a venue
• better pinch and squeeze zoom on maps
• when adding a new venue, users can adjust the lat, long of the venue by tapping on a google map
• tapping icons on friend and venue maps actualy shows info window
• empty tips and todos lists now let the user know that there aren’t any items
• empty tips on venue detail now alerts user in a friendlier way
• added icon next to friend requests in navmenu
• fixed a bug on Pixi where tapping a badge on another user’s profile, the tooltip would be under the commandmenu and unreadable

That list isn’t pretty and has typos, but it’s just copy/pasted from my personal log file I use to track changes.

So there you have it, another sneak peek teaser for foursquare webOS v1.5. The private beta testers will get 1.5 hopefully tonight and test it through the weekend. I’ll send it out into public beta via the Web Channel (the “Now” version) at the end of the weekend and so hopefully Wednesday of next week everyone will see the official non-beta version in the App Catalog.