Swarm by Foursquare helps you find out where your friends are and hook up with those who are nearby.

What's the point of Swarm?

The app offers a quick way to check who is close by right now from your Foursquare friends. If you'd like to hook-up you can very quickly send a message to all of those who are currently nearby.

A simple plan

Swarm is arguably easier to check in with than the original Foursquare app for iOS. You simply need to hit the refresh button and Swarm will detect your location. You can then add a comment to say what you're doing, or select one of the icons that best describes your status.

The Swarm app is easy to navigate. Menus are conveniently accessible through tabs for checking who is in the neighborhood, a timeline of where your friends have been recently, notifications, and a 'Create a plan' section. This latter menu allows you to define a place, explain what the plan is, then send to whoever you want to invite along.

Streamlined Foursquare client

Swarm is faster and simpler than the regular Foursquare client, and makes it easy to set up impromptu get-togethers. However, if you like the gaming aspect of Foursquare (leaderboards, mayorships, etc.) you won't find them in Swarm.