Foursquare is a location-based app that allows you to virtually check-in into places and collect points and rewards. It has very competitive leader boards and also badges to award you with special tokens for certain activities performed.
You also have the possibility to become the mayor of a place. You can also use it to review a restaurant or a bar so others can read your recommendations before choosing a place to have fun.
Another cool thing is that you can get discounts or promotions if you check in or become the mayor of a place.
In Malta this concept is still picking up. However, I’ve seen plenty of tourists actually using this app to find places and read recommendations.
The recently redesigned Twitter app is your gateway to allow you to keep up-to-date with your Tweeps. The app itself is very easy to use and allows you to read, post and manage all Twitter related activities. Other features include live mapping, photo sharing, video posting and sharing links.
Real-time search, trending topics and maps show what’s happening now everywhere and nearby. The UI of the app will be instantly familiar to Twitter users. Here you can tweet, retweet and view lists, your profile and what messages and mentions you have.
Facebook messenger
Previously known as Beluga, this app basically allows you to make use of the Facebook messaging platform on the go. The official Facebook app doesn’t allow easy access to messages and chat, which means it is the perfect tool to chat with your Facebook buddies. It’s super simple to have group discussions with your friends, see where everybody is on the map and much more. It’s also a great tool to organise events as well as to get everybody’s opinion or broadcast yours.
This is what Flickr could have been if it had a solid app. Instagram has literally taken hold of the online universe and at one point was adding 1.5 users per second. By the end of 2011, it had over 15 million users. All these users are on iOS, because the company hasn’t even released an app on another platform yet. While taking photos and adding a filter might not sound like fun to everyone, Instagram’s community does it in droves, along with commenting and liking photos. It’s a beautiful community, and the social nature of the app goes way beyond the mobile device.
The official Facebook app pretty much leads the way in any ‘Top Apps’ list. It’s easy to use, very intuitive and you can see all the status updates, shared links and new photos shared by your friends.
One of the best features is the contact list sync, which lets you synchronise your phone address book with your Facebook contacts so that you have the most up to date phone numbers, contact pictures and e-mail address for everybody.
The technology enthusiast has his own blog at www.itnewsblog.com.