Automated checkin apps are becoming increasingly popular as LBS continues to pick up steam. People want to make sure they checkin to venues they frequent, but it’s not always handy to whip out your cell phone, open an app and checkin — especially when you sport numerous apps at the same time.
Luckily, app developers were quick to solve the problem by taking advantage of background processing on the iPhone and Android devices. Two new apps to fit that description are “Checkmate” and “Future Checkin,” both of which are iPhone apps primarily geared towards automated Foursquare checkins.
The functionality of both is similar and straightforward. A user launches the app, adds their favorite locations to their “Auto Checkin Venues” list and the apps automatically check you in when you come within roughly 50 meters of a saved location. Checkmate offers the ability to toggle automatic checkins on or off for the whole list, as well as specify whether to automatically post a shout or share the checkin on Facebook and Twitter.
Future Checkin [iTunes link] goes a bit further and offers options to adjust the GPS settings for more accurate or more battery-friendly automatic checkins, though both apps warn of batter drain using the background processing. Still, both offer a welcomed option to solve the problem of so-called “checkin fatigue.”
