The location aware app Foursquare, and its check-in sidekick Swarm, seemingly kills my phone’s battery. I mean, whenever I get within a block of the TechCrunch office, it lets me know all of the wonderful places around me that I can grab a coffee or whatnot.
I even tweeted about how annoying the drain is:
https://twitter.com/drew/status/674811494731681792
One problem with my annoyance is that Foursquare swears that its apps don’t drain your battery. So much so that they sent me a lovely little poem along with a Foursquare-branded phone charger (which I gave to my wife). I thought it was a pretty cool way to handle a gripe that they probably get often:
It’s a fun read, so click on it. They get to the heart of the matter by explaining their “Pilgrim” technology, which apparently only turns on the location-aware features when you physically stop while you’re en route to wherever you’re going. Fair. I’m on my phone a lot, and I tend to stop to reply to emails and texts.
So here’s my official apology, Foursquare.
Just stick to your day jobs and we’ll do the writing ;)
